Minds, Names and Faces
by ShutUpAndCalculate
Summary: An AU/Continuation recursive fanfic of the excellent "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, the Boy-Who-Lived, General Chaos, etc., has had a rather busy year. With the term drawing to a close, Harry starts to discover the truth behind the enigmatic Defence Professor, Quirinus Quirrell.
1. Something of a Riddle

**Author's Note**

**Hello everyone,**

**This is my AU/Continuation of _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. _Chapter One takes the place of HPMOR Ch. 105. This story takes a different approach to HPMOR, especially with regard to Quirrell (who is not leather-pantsed: he still casts AK at will), the Philosopher's Stone, and the endgame.**

**Many thanks to the Reddit user /u/kulyok for her services as beta.**

_Tom Riddle._

The words seemed to echo inside Harry's head, sparking resonances that as quickly died away, broken patterns trying to complete themselves and failing.

_Tom Riddle is a_

_Tom Riddle was the_

_Riddle_

Professor Quirrell briefly looked expectant, but then the expression was gone. "And though I must credit your deduction, Mr. Potter - or Riddle, as the case may be - it is a little more complicated than that."

"I," Harry croaked, "what do you mean?"

The Defence Professor sighed, and his shoulders dropped, but the gun and the wand remained perfectly steady, the eyes sharp and icy. "I had rather hoped, Mr. Potter, that that would now be clear to you. No matter, we have time." His lips curled into a customary small smile. "If it puts you at ease, suffice it to say that you are only _mostly_ Voldemort. As for me... well. Something of a riddle, Mr. Potter."

A note of hope soared in Harry's breast, buoyed still further by the fact that the Professor was upright and verbose, before his inner Slytherin shot it out of the sky in its anti-wishful-thinking instinct. Even if the Defence Professor wasn't evil it was still in his best interests to stay on guard.

Harry opened his mouth to say something - he wasn't sure what. Professor Quirrell... didn't _gesture_ with the gun, but it suddenly somehow seemed far more prominent.

"Now. I obviously do not want to kill you, Mr. Potter, so please relax to the extent that it is reasonable to do so when a perfect Occlumens is pointing a gun at you and assuring you that he means no harm."

Harry tensed even further, and that earned him the ghost of a grin.

"I must apologise for threatening you, Mr. Potter, but you do have a staggering anti-talent for meddling." The Defence Professor's voice became clipped. "When I tell you to do so, you are going to remove your Time-Turner, which you will seize by the chain. You will then remove your pouch and emergency portkeys, and hand everything to me. We are both considering loopholes in that, so allow me to say that I have raised anti-Portkey wards, and if I do suspect that you are doing anything untoward I shall be forced to shoot you in the arm. I do not wish to harm you, but you have tourniquets in your pouch and are a good enough Occlumens to ignore the pain. Begin."

Harry swallowed and obeyed.

Harry's time machine disappeared into the flowing professorial robes, and the spares stored in his pouch floated up and deposited themselves in pockets and around the Professor's neck. Professor Quirrell pointed his wand at the pouch and muttered something vaguely Latinate, then handed it back to Harry. The gun vanished as though it had never been.

The Defence Professor smiled. "Now, Mr. Potter, today we are going to follow in the footsteps of every child in Gryffindor and a handful of the staff, and delve into a hideously dangerous maze of traps set by the greatest wizard alive. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

_Some people are so likeable it's hard to hate them properly_, said Draco's imagined voice in Harry's mind.

_But he implied he's not Voldemort - if we can get the Stone Professor Quirrell might not die - _

Waves of relief were washing through Harry, so powerful that he felt like laughing. The idea that he was wrong, that Quirrell was not the Dark Lord, and that he might not have to lose a friend again...

At that thought, Harry recalled watching Hermione Granger as her heart failed for lack of blood, as magic fled her broken shell and carried her mind with it.

He remembered Lily Potter's last stand, how she'd died with her wand in her hand, how Voldemort had stood over the corpse of a hero and laughed.

He remembered the story of the man who called for his country to unite, and the skins nailed to the wall.

He remembered the statistics, thousands dead by Voldemort's hand alone - that is, he thought about Hermione, and tried to multiply that feeling by a thousand.

And then he locked cold green eyes on the entity before him. Professor Quirrell was possibly Voldemort in some way, and that meant he couldn't afford to be happy yet.

_All right. Back to being sane now._

Hermione's voice in his head was telling him not to trust Quirrell... Voldemort... Quirrellmort? Harry ignored the bizarre urge to laugh again. It was just nervousness and relief, and he didn't need that. Hermione was supported by half of Hufflepuff, the other half of which was standing up for Harry's friend and mentor. Ravenclaw was trying to remember where it had heard "something of a riddle" before. Harry set all of that aside. _How can I get the truth from someone who plays "one level higher than you"?_

"Mr. Potter, in all seriousness, I am indeed dying. The unicorn will sustain me only long enough for this. The Philosopher's Stone is located here, and it has power beyond what, I suspect, Dumbledore knows. Dumbledore may be able to twist himself into opposing immortality, but if he knew the healing it truly could do, he would have seized it from Flamel long ago. As you must have guessed, I need your help, Mr. Potter. I realise that it is... impolite to threaten one's friends with firearms, but I hope you'll understand, given that my life is at stake."

Harry cleared his throat and clicked a stronger, calmer, sombre aspect into place. "If Lord Voldemort has a reputation for telling the truth, Professor, I have not heard it."

"Which is why it is fortunate that you are not speaking to Lord Voldemort, Mr. Potter. Not quite, at any rate."

_Hope-_

_That's exactly what the Dark Lord Voldemort WOULD say,_ hissed Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

Harry shut the thought down, and considered how to ask why he should believe the Professor without offending him.

"_Ssnakess can't lie_," hissed Professor Quirrell.

_What?_

"_Two pluss two equalss four_." Harry had tried to say "three". _How does this work... _Harry mustered the strongest Occlumency barrier he could. "_Green ssmellss like_-" Harry couldn't make any further Parseltongue pass his lips. "Interesting."_ How does Parseltongue determine the truth? Could I guess Interdicted lore by trying different statements until one of them worked, or is it just things I think are true? If that's the case, could a False Memory Charm beat it?_

_"Honesstly do not hold ill will towardss you. Am not truly Dark Lord in meaningful ssensse. No particular tasste for ssensseless murderss, though admit that value placcced on mosst livess iss not commenssurate with that of mossst moralisstss. Sseek Sstone to ssave own life, iss devicce of great healing power."_

Harry paused.

The drowning sense of horror had drained away, and the overwhelming relief was replaced by growing pressure.

He needed more time, he couldn't make a decision so quickly, couldn't just change his whole viewpoint again in a few seconds...

Harry ignored his brain.

Voldemort or not, the Defence Professor was not a good man. He never had been, Harry had always known that. He could cast the Killing Curse at will, would probably not lose much sleep over murdering anyone who seriously annoyed him...

But... it was idealism, sheer foolish idealism, but... he was also Harry's friend.

You didn't just give up on friends even when they were this badly wrong, not while you had a chance of saving them.

You certainly didn't let them go off and pose a risk to other people.

You didn't allow them to die through your own inaction, either.

And it wasn't as though he had much of a choice.

"All right, Professor. Let's go and get that Stone."

**OoOoO**

"Professor?" asked Harry as they came to a halt directly before the polished oaken door. "What exactly does the Stone do?"

Harry had mastered his breathing, now, and he saw the Defence Professor clearly. The man's cheeks were sunken and his limbs thin and his skin grey - the sickness hadn't all been bluff... unless Quirrell was an exceptional actor and a wizard, which he was. Of course, he could just want the Stone for...

... other reasons...

"An excellent question, Mr. Potter, and one I found myself asking. Consider, if you will, a witch or a wizard with a heart blacker far than the Dark Lord's, selfish and jealous of their ancient device, a key not only to immortality but also to enormous healing power, such that they withhold it from all. Consider also that Dumbledore, master and servant of a Phoenix, holds this person as a close personal friend."

"Flamel is a perfect Occlumens who convinced Dumbledore that he needed to keep the Stone away from people?"

"Of course. And clearly, one such as he would not tell the truth to the greatest wizard in the world, but he might enjoy leaving hints. So, Mr. Potter, bearing in mind that Flamel creates specifically gold, true gold, and lives six hundred years, and the world still does not run on happy stories, and this device is truly unique and of ancient power, what does the Philosopher's Stone do?"

"It makes other magic permanent," replied Harry almost automatically. It might have just been a guess, or it might have been some half-remembered speculation from one of the few texts on the Stone, or maybe it was the fact that gold did not tarnish or fade like lesser metals. It felt like a certain guess, along the lines of the truth about Dementors or the secret of the Killing Curse. Harry was beginning to suspect that there was some subtle secondary effect of the Interdict, lest magic ever be truly lost...

"Quite so. The Philosopher's Stone will render a Transfigured item the true substance, and grant permanence to Charms and rituals. This is is a power beyond almost any other magic. There are some very few spells and items that are truly enduring, others such as the castle Hogwarts that are sustained by a constant well of magic, and many that are fleeting, but the Philosopher's Stone imparts true endurance to any magic. Naturally, this will save my life, and I will gladly assist you in using the Stone to resurrect the late Miss Granger. _Sstone truly impartss permanenccce, sshall usse it to raissse girl-child-friend_."

Harry's heart did not stop, because that would be an absolutely ridiculous evolutionary adaptation, but it seemed a very accurate metaphor.

Harry started to smile. The Defence Professor was not the Dark Lord, he might actually really be able to save Hermione... if Harry had been holding a wand at that moment, he thought, he might have burned away all the Dementors of Azkaban from where he stood.

"I assume you Transfigured Miss Granger's corpse into the ring on your finger? The diamond would be the more obvious option to check, and its magic would mask that of the ring."

Harry was struggling to stay properly pessimistic. "As a certain someone would say, Professor, _not paranoid enough_. I hoped people would assume that, and when they tested it and failed it would provide a second layer of cover. I Transfigured her into as big a diamond toe-ring as I could, to minimise Transfiguration damage, and just hid her under my pillow when Dumbledore summoned me."

As it happened, Dumbledore had never checked the ring. It seemed likely that he had simply sensed that it was wholly mundane. Harry's recently-unlocked Time-Turner had allowed him to hide Hermione's corpse before his bed was inspected.

"Cunning indeed. Now, Mr. Potter, rest assured that we have time. Our discovery here would raise quite the hue and cry, and since your Quidditch game went uninterrupted it seems likely it shall not come to pass. Still, it does not do to tarry in any case." Professor Quirrell gestured at the door.

Harry took a deep breath and readied himself, conscious as ever of the hard weight on his left foot.


	2. Playing Chess, Part One

The oaken door swung open, and -

Harry didn't bother to stop himself from screaming as he threw himself backwards and away from the triplicate sets of glinting teeth. He landed, not hard enough to hurt a wizard, and drew his wand and roared "_Stupefy! Stupefy!_"

The first stunbolt dazed the creature slightly, but before the second hit home a chunk of Hogwarts' stone wrenched itself free of the floor and flew into the path of the spell. The levitation visibly left it just before the bolt hit, and then it melded back into the floor.

"Not bad as a reaction, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell's somehow-audible voice over the creature's many-voiced roar, "but consider that Dumbledore designed this chamber as a game for eleven-year-olds." A genuine-looking smile. "Before he ever saw an army of them. This creature, which our intrepid groundskeeper informs me is named Fluffy, is Charmed to spit students out without harming them. Now, how do you suggest we deal with this most terrifying of creatures?"

"Ah," Harry said as he tried to slow his heartbeat down, "if, um, _Fluffy_ is like Cerberus in Greek mythology, because that phrase is not ridiculous at all, then we could sing to it?"

Professor Quirrell was giving him a _look._

_The Killing Curse is unblockable, unstoppable, and works every single time on everything with a brain._

"Um. We might trigger alarms by going in all wands blazing?"

"That was a flimsy excuse, but very well."

A flick of the Defence Professor's wand, a sound like a hundred songs played backwards in the space of a second, and Fluffy collapsed in a snoring heap.

"As for alarms, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell, "the race between magical defence and offence is a decisive win for offence, which is why modern cursebreakers can pierce the tombs of ancient wizards, and so I confess myself impressed that Dumbledore's wards took me many months to untangle." He gestured Harry forwards. "After you."

Harry entered the chamber before his brain caught up with him, and he turned to behold a more-evil-than-usual smirk. Harry swallowed, trying not to imagine what his parents would say.

The room was high and dim, lit only by small, high windows set into recessed alcoves. The stone was grey and coarse, cemented together roughly, more like a ruined Muggle fortress than the rest of the castle Hogwarts. "Lumos," Harry muttered, focussing the light into a narrow beam like a torch, and began to inspect the featureless alcoves.

"What _are_ you doing, Mr. Potter?"

"Searching the room. There could be some sort of inscription, or a key we'll need later, or a hidden passageway, or-"

Professor Quirrell massaged his temples briefly. "As it happens, your mastery of Muggle role-playing games might serve you well if you ever feel the urge to enter the Tomb of Amon-Set, but I remind you once again that Dumbledore built this game, this false puzzle, for first-years."

"Ah."

Harry skirted the drooling Cerberus and eased open the worn trapdoor, which disappointingly failed to creak eerily.

The pit dropped far below, he couldn't tell how far but it looked a long way below ground level, insofar as that meant anything in Hogwarts. He thought he caught a glimpse of something wriggling at the very bottom.

"Broomstick" said Harry to his pouch, and he climbed on and gestured Professor Quirrell towards the back seat.

Professor Quirrell floated gently into the air.

Harry noticed his confusion. "I thought wizards couldn't levitate themselves?"

"Quite so. It is said to be like lifting oneself up by one's own bootstraps. And indeed, one of the Dark Lord's most feared feats was to fly like smoke on the wind, unsupported but for his own wizardry. How did he and I do this, boy? Answer as quickly as you can."

_I'm sorry, are we really still buying that he isn't Voldemort?_ asked Slytherin.

_He swore he wasn't, in Parseltongue,_ spoke Ravenclaw, _although admittedly it still probably isn't a good idea to trust him. So what do we know that has the power to fly?_

"Um... you cast broomstick enchantments... no, you had someone else cast broomstick enchantments on your underwear, then Obliviated them."

"Cloth would not hold the magic. Broomstick enchantments must be cast on a long, narrow, rigid shape."

Perhaps Harry had been spending too much time around the older Ravenclaws, because he had to fight down a snicker at that. "How long does it have to be? Could you just strap short broomsticks to your arms?"

"Indeed, I did at first. And yet..." Professor Quirrell rolled up his sleeve to reveal a bare, wasted arm.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You have broomstick enchantments on your _bones_?"

"And in thirty seconds of creativity, Mr. Potter, you have solved what has been called one of the greatest challenges of modern wizardry." A shake of the head. "Even after much study of the Muggle arts of psychology and some curious Legilimency, I have yet to discover just what is wrong with ordinary people, that they do not seek to optimise what they see. If only the lore of the legendary Felix Felicis were not lost to the ages... but I digress."

Professor Quirrell flew neatly down into the pit, and Harry followed.

Carefully avoiding a patch of what Harry recognised as Devil's Snare, they came to another stone chamber. The air was filled with a metallic rustling, and hundreds of multicoloured birdlike keys fluttered about the ceiling. The light from the enchanted windows, unbroken stained glass panes that stretched from floor to ceiling, was rosy and soft for all that they were underground, and the winged keys scattered rainbow spots over the smooth bright stone.

"Excuse me, but this just violates every possible rule of security. If you think you've secured a door with a lock, you keep the key safe and give it only to authorised entrants, you don't _give the key wings_ and _leave a broomstick propped against the wall_. I know this place was made for first-years, but did that really not occur to anyone who came through here?"

"Perhaps you ought to give the Legion further lessons, General Chaos."

"Hmph. So how are we going to go through this one?"

"I assume you never tried out for Ravenclaw Seeker, Mr. Potter- it really is rather disconcerting to be glared at like that by an eleven-year-old. Well, as you insist."

The Professor drew his wand and touched it to his breast. With a drop of blood clinging to the end of his wand, he traced in the air a flaming rune, all jagged edges and malevolence, looking disturbingly _wrong_. Harry took a step back.

"Az-reth, az-reth, az-reth."

Twisting flames poured out from the rune, redder than blood and haloed in yellow-white and shot through with further black than midnight. The fire burned too brightly for its wine-dark shade of red, glared like the setting sun just as it touches the horizon, not quite unbearable to look at. The fire formed the shapes of dragons and lions and snakes, and they began to multiply and expand to fill the room. The heat blurred Harry's vision and crisped his hair. Sweat dripped from his forehead, but an icy chill ran up his spine. His dark side, or just plain instinct, was urging him to stay well away from the cursed fire.

Harry's Inner Ravenclaw suggested that the reason it looked so _wrong_ was simple: in everyday experience, hot objects didn't usually glow that brightly in that shade of red due to the way black-body radiation behaved.

That explanation offered little comfort.

When Professor Quirrell locked eyes upon the Fiendfyre, it turned in on itself and shrank, taking the shape of a foul black-burning phoenix.

And something told Harry with burning certainty that if that balefire phoenix met Fawkes, the true phoenix would die and never be reborn.

The door burst into flames even before the false phoenix reached it; with a single sweep of its molten wings, the door vanished in a white flash, and the red-rimed doorway dripped stone. Professor Quirrell drifted sedately after the flames, the stone freezing in place as he passed.

Harry tried to turn to his dark side, which prompted a sudden thought. _Only mostly Voldemort..._ His dark side, clearly, was the remaining influence of Lord Voldemort on his mind, thinking habits and feelings somehow leftover from imprinted memories that shouldn't have still existed.

Harry probably ought to have been more worried about turning out to be somehow partly the Dark Lord, but frankly that sounded a lot like something the hero agonised over for years, before finally realising that it was his choices that made him who he really was and that he obviously wasn't as evil as Voldemort.

Now that he knew what his dark side was, Harry thought he should be able to call on the icy calmness without falling into the less desirable parts of the pattern.

An ever-so-slightly cold Harry stepped over the threshold.

The vast chamber was torchlit this time. A few steps in front of Harry started a huge chessboard of black and white marble squares, each two metres or more on each side, stretching from wall to distant wall. Chess pieces almost the size of Hagrid stood on the board, intricately carven of granite, looking for all the world like well-made statues.

The room was high enough for the ceiling to be far out of reach of the statues.

Harry was about to suggest that the obvious solution was to simply fly over the board when he noticed that some of the pieces carried bows.

Professor Quirrell glanced at the board, and the black king and queen turned and stepped aside.

"Well," spoke Professor Quirrell, "since we still have four and a half hours until you leave the Quidditch game, it seems that we can afford to play. I am sure you are positively bursting with questions, and have done an admirable job keeping quiet. Take the king's place, and I shall take the queen's. Let us play, and I shall answer your questions if you have them."


	3. Playing Chess, Part Two:Pawn Takes Queen

**A/N: Apologies for the delay. **

**Leirad: Harry does not know the Summoning Charm, which Canon Harry doesn't learn until GoF. **

The white king's pawn ground forwards two places.

"First. Who exactly are you?"

Professor Quirrell's shoulders straightened, and he appeared to consider the question.

"I am Professor Quirinus Quirrell, Lord David Monroe, Sir Jeremy Jaffe, Doctor Artadus Bunting, and a handful of others."

Professor Quirrell's gaze grew distant.

"As for how I came to be what I am... well. You are familiar, I know, with the Dark Art called Horcrux."

Harry nodded. He'd given some thought to how that spell could be used, if it could be engineered to use some different source for the death-burst, such as a magical creature. If a phoenix's regeneration superseded the power of a magical sacrifice, that was one potential option...

"I was David Monroe, defender of Britain. The Dark Lord was tearing the country apart, and if Magical Britain fell the rest of the world would surely follow. The Order could not hope to defeat Voldemort." The voice grew bitter. "I thought myself better suited, a Slytherin to counter a Slytherin."

Monroe's eyes narrowed.

"I was naïve. Albus Dumbledore was the only living wizard who could truly be called Voldemort's better, on top of that wielding the Hallowed Wand, called the Only One He Ever Feared. At no point was he anywhere near enough to match the terror that was the Dark Lord."

The beginnings of a sneer were playing about his face.

"I was a fool, a complete and utter fool. You wonder where I learnt my wizardry, boy? I pierced Salazar's Chamber, I spoke to his snake, I studied the Forgotten Arts. And when I was finished, I thanked the Basilisk courteously and left. I returned to the Chamber in my final year, to give my final thanks and goodbyes."

Then his voice was no longer contained, but cracked and vicious.

"I found the Basilisk's mouldering corpse! Beside it was a Penseive with a memory of Riddle _gloating_ that he had killed the creature that only ever wished to help him, that Salazar had left as an unconditional gift to his heirs!" The aura of danger around Quirrell focussed into a pain in Harry's scar, and a light wind fluttered the elder wizard's robes around him.

"I make no claim to be a good person, Mr. Potter, but I like to think that I am not so empty as Riddle was even as a child."

A black knight fell from its granite horse.

Quirrell clenched a withered fist.

"And yet, I thought I could stand against Voldemort. Do you know what his plan truly was, boy?" he spat. "I learned of it later; you will understand soon enough. The Dark Lord was _playing_. I was powerful enough, courtesy of Slytherin's Monster, but utterly, hopelessly outmatched. Voldemort could have taken over Magical Britain within a week. But he had been _bored_, he was _having fun_... His plan was to allow me, David Monroe, to seemingly finally defeat him and take over Britain, and thence the world. But when he learned of the prophecy, he had no further use for me."

Quirrell sacrificed a pawn to the white queen.

He sighed. "In the beginning, I thought I could redeem Slytherin house. It says something rather profound that one thing I shared with the Dark Lord was an intense dislike of bullies. I would change that, become the Slytherin against whom all others would be measured." A short, bitter laugh. "And yet I was always a pawn of the Dark Lord, as I discovered one Hallowe'en."

Harry gave a small, involuntary step back at that. The tension had been rising, and Quirrell looked coldly, calmly furious. Harry had the uncomfortable notion that this was what his friends felt when he was angry.

"I knew the prophecy, and I had received intelligence that the Dark Lord intended to attack your home. I arrived on the scene to find James dead on the threshold, Lily fallen having tried desperately to save you." A touch of sorrow reached Quirrell's eyes, such an expression as Harry had rarely seen on him. "The Dark Lord used Lily's death to perform the Horcrux spell upon you. He planned, I believe, to thus destroy all but a remnant of you and remove the difference between your spirits, and set you up as a puppet instead of me. It did not end well for him."

"The resonance?"

"Yes. I am given to understand that the resonance is a side-effect of prophecy. As the Dark Lord wrought his spell, the turbulence began to burn him from the inside out. Just as I arrived, Riddle counterspelled my attempt at shielding as easily as I overwhelmed those bullies in the hallway, and then he cast aside his wand and tried to possess me, hoping to protect himself."

The white king moved to hide behind a pawn.

" I- I was caught up by the Horcrux spell. As he was trying to possess me, it was not the traditional overwrite, but a massive input of all that Riddle was..."

Quirrell trailed off, and took a deep breath. He looked _old_, and tired, and miserable. The Defence Professor had never shown such emotion in all the time Harry had known him. He gave Harry a measuring look.

"Mr. Potter... Harry. This- this is not a pleasant story, especially for you. This is one of the things I see when the life-eaters approach. And yet I know that you have seen things most will have the luxury never to see. You are no ordinary child. Even so, I will not blame you if you refuse to see this."

A lump rose in Harry's throat. It was the first time, the first time Professor Quirrell had ever used his first name.

From the dark robes came a small, grey stone bowl etched with odd runes, which settled on a conjured desk. Quirrell placed his wand to his temple and drew from it a thread of what looked like something between molten lead and Patronus light, which settled in the bowl, glowing faintly blue.

"_It iss ssafe_."

Harry swallowed, remembering the last Penseive memory he'd seen, Dumbledore losing his brother. He placed his hands on either side of the bowl, and leaned down until he fell into the memory.

The nursery was warm and brightly-lit and airy, yet it held a chill reminiscent of Dementors. Lord Voldemort stood over the corpse of a red-haired woman, tall and pale and terrible, tracing a spiral pattern in the air. The spiral was neither dark nor bright, no colour human eyes should have received, no colour a human brain could describe - it looked like the colour of something entirely colourless, with nothing behind it whatsoever, the same colour as what Harry saw out of his elbow.

Harry realised with a jolt that this was in part Voldemort's memory.

A small part of Harry noted that the Penseive showed more detail than Voldemort could possibly see, let alone remember, and wondered how to exploit that ability.

Black hatred surged in Harry as the Dark Lord touched his wand to Lily Potter's forehead and raised it to the swirling spiral of nothingness.

Lord Voldemort hissed in cadences older than Latin, "_Sozdomai, ton phrenon emou sozdo..._"

The beginning and ends of the spiral of nothingness glowed stark white.

The bone-white wand rose, touched the infant's head-

And then the far wall was torn away, a gust of wind blew freezing droplets into the warm room, and a man dismounted a broomstick and drew his wand in one smooth motion.

"I truly thought I might save them," came the soft voice of the modern-day Monroe from behind Harry.

Harry jumped and turned.

"I am... very sorry for what happened this night."

Harry nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

The young Monroe rushed towards the screaming Dark Lord, opening his mouth to chant Shield Charms-

Voldemort slashed his wand and released it mid-swing. Monroe's shields were torn away like so much tissue paper, the Dark Lord vanished in a black swirl, and Monroe collapsed, holding his hands to his bleeding head and screaming, screaming in two tones, alternately deep and human and high-pitched and demonic-

The spiral of nothingness flashed every colour and burst, setting every hair on Harry's neck on end and-

The nursery vanished.

_The darkness coiled around him, and David was dead, he knew he was dead, life could not possibly contain such pain. Suddenly his head rushed, and he was assaulted with a thousand books, a thousand libraries, everything that was the Dark Lord, and it burned._

The scene changed.

_The scraggly little rabbit was growing old. It had a bite taken out of one ear and its fur was falling out and most of its tail was long gone, but Billy Stubbs doted on it. It didn't take Legilimency to know that it was the only thing left in the world that yet loved Billy._

_One day, Billy had shoved Tom Riddle at the dinner table, had taken the last of his favourite food, and when Tom had protested Billy had hit him, and called him a freak._

_And Tom had listened to Billy's screams, and his sobs, and more screams every night when he had nightmares (always inexplicably vivid and consistent), after the rabbit was found hanging by its neck from the rafters, and smiled._

The scene changed.

_"Go on, then!" bellowed the small, balding man. "Go on then, _Tom!_ Kill me! Martyr me! I've lived a good life. More than anyone could say for you. You're _pathetic_. I'm not scared of you."_

_"Is that so, Yermy?" hissed a voice that might have come from the whistling wind or the crackling fires consuming the bolt-hole. "Is that so?" He waved a skeletal, spidery hand, and the Disillusioned, Silenced forms of three women were revealed behind him. _

_"No," whispered the old man, "No, no, NO-"_

The scene changed.

The Dark Lord reappeared in the nursery, staggering.

Then the scene paused, and Professor Quirrell turned to Harry.

"The Dark Lord unwittingly imprinted his being onto me," intoned the modern Monroe grimly. His voice took on something like a professorial tone, though it was still strained. "Mr. Potter, when you heard of the Horcrux spell, what was your first thought?"

It took him some effort, through the numbing pain, horror and revulsion, but Harry thought back. "To improve it."

"And this Lord Voldemort had done. He had formed his greatest creation: an improved Horcrux. Legends suggest this may have been the original form of the spell. Regardless, each Horcrux granted him what might be called a soul: a constant non-physical embodiment of his being."

_Something of a Riddle._ "One Horcrux buried in solid rock," muttered Harry heavily, "One Horcrux sunk to the depths of the ocean. One Horcrux dropped into the Earth's mantle. One Horcrux flying invisibly in the sky. And one drifting forever through space, the Pioneer Plaque."

That wasn't quite as bad as it could be. There might be some way to track them, somehow, through the magical link that must surely exist in some form... and NASA knew exactly where the Probe was...

Quirrell seemed to gather himself, and his gaze turned sharp. "If you are considering the practicalities of a great quest to hunt down the fragments of the Dark Lord's soul, know that the spell has no great cost, merely a murder."

"I see," said Harry hollowly. "The Dark Lord made a Horcrux every time he murdered someone. Pebbles tossed in the sea, grains of sand..."

"Mr. Potter, this puzzle," Quirrell gestured to the tableau, "is soluble with your knowledge of magic. The Dark Lord Voldemort releases his possession and reappears before you, briefly dazed, and you are able to Stun him before he recovers. He has thousands of Greater Horcruxes hidden even he knows not where. If you kill him, he will return, and he will wreak the most terrible vengeance upon you. What do you do?"

Harry saw the solution instantly. What he'd been calling his dark side was just the echoes of the Dark Lord in his mind, and when he'd asked it what it thought of death...

The Dark Lord Voldemort had held such a terror of death that he had seized on his first solution and implemented it again and again, flinching away from the uncomfortable thought that it might be fallible.

A Muggle security analyst would call that fencepost security, like building a single mile-high fencepost in the middle of the desert. Nobody would try to climb it - they'd simply walk around it.

No number of Horcruxes would ever help Frank and Alice Longbottom. Thirty minutes under the Cruciatus Curse, and the Dark Lord would be gone forever. Or, even better, hit him with an _Obliviate_ hard enough to make him forget his own name. The greatest Dark Lord in centuries could be destroyed by a first-year of Hogwarts.

"You Memory-Charmed him so hard that he lost his entire episodic memory?"

Professor Quirrell shook his head. "That would have been the better solution, but no. Not quite." His eyes were stony and still, his face seeming carven from ice. "Words cannot possibly express my feeling in that instant. Monroe's righteous rage, Riddle's cold fury..."

The memory-Monroe snatched the Dark Lord's fallen wand and hissed, "_Stupefy_." The scene froze again.

"Using two wands is dangerously unpredictable and inefficient, but I was beyond all reason." The words were quiet. "I had _hated_ Riddle before. He murdered my entire House, and some he did not grant the mercy of the Killing Curse. I arrived too late, held them as they died... and yet never before I received his Horcrux spell did I feel such loathing."

The younger Monroe aimed two wands at the Dark Lord and shrieked, "CRUCIO!"

Harry watched, almost unseeing, as the Dark Lord writhed and twitched under the wands of Harry's friend's younger self.

It wasn't right, it shouldn't have happened, not even to him, not to anyone.

Quirrell's voice was soft, lilting, and Harry felt sick as he realised that this was most likely the best part of the memory for Quirrell.

"Before you judge me too harshly, Harry, listen. This is my worst memory, the worst memory. This night, I was made to be like the Dark Lord. Riddle had once tried to be happy. He was nothing if not sensible. He spent a great deal of effort trying to help people. He was Alexander Chernyshov, he liberated some tiny hellhole and its inhabitants wept tears of gratitude. For him, it felt like nothing in particular." Quirrell's voice dripped contempt. "I can still remember how it used to feel to help people, call to mind the warm glow. Sometimes I still feel it, to some degree. That plain indifference is the Dark Lord's curse, worse than any magic I or any other could cast on him. And that is what he gave to me. And that is how I cast one of the most dreadful curses and feel nothing."

Harry was frozen, he had no idea what to say, no idea what to think.

"I will not show you the worst of Riddle's atrocities. I am not a soft-hearted man, Mr. Potter, but sometimes I still wake from nightmares about what happened to Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop, when the Dark Lord was nine years old."

The memory faded, and Harry was standing once more on a tile of cool stone.

Harry wiped the sweat from his forehead. There would be time to process all of this later, time to rage and weep later. For now he could use his Occlumency and _pretend to be_ someone impartial. He needed to learn as much as he could.

"What was the Dark Lord actually planning?"

The grim, stony expression remained. "The Dark Lord planned to have David Monroe appear to kill him, then touch a Horcrux and become a puppet leader. As for why he did not effect this sooner... past emotions are difficult to untangle from the mess of Riddle's memories, but I believe he was simply enjoying the game too much. He felt invulnerable, and fell too deeply into the role he was playing. Dumbledore, you see, has not a Slytherin bone in his entire body, and yet he tries because he must. Dumbledore brings to his task the Elder Wand, the Line of Merlin Unbroken, a phoenix, some source of foreknowledge, magic beyond any seen for three hundred years, intelligence, dedication, and an utter lack of talent. For that reason, he is marvellously difficult to predict."

Harry's throat felt dry. Somewhere, the Sorting Hat was screaming at him. The thought had finally occurred to Harry that his unreasonable hatred of Dumbledore had come from the imprint of the Dark Lord, and indeed, when he'd queried his dark side he'd found burning hatred and contempt. _I think_, said Hufflepuff, _you owe someone a very big apology._

Quirrell's lips thinned. "The Dark Lord's little game broke five of my rules at first count, which is generally too much no matter how much fun one might be having, but I suppose he thought he stood to lose little."

The white king was hemmed in now.

"Another question, Professor. Who killed Hermione? The wards identified it as you." _Please don't let it have been you, if you killed Hermione I want to believe you killed Hermione, please don't let it have been you..._

Professor Quirrell set his teeth. "I did not succeed in what I did to the Dark Lord, Mr. Potter. "

"Of course you didn't. It would be _purest optimism_ to assume the Dark Lord is no longer a threat, just because he was Cruciated into insanity and burned to a crisp..."

"The Dark Lord was the greatest Occlumens in all recorded history. Merlin himself would have been unable to pierce his mind. Somehow, he managed to ignore the curse long enough to fake catatonia. Like a fool, I approached, and he seized his wand and poured the scraps of his magic into a blasting curse that vaporised my body and blew the roof off Godric's Hollow, but burned Voldemort as well. He expired shortly thereafter. As a partial copy of the Dark Lord, I was protected by the Horcruxes. It was then that I found that the great creation was imperfect. I could not float free, but was shackled to Horcruxes that the Dark Lord had hidden even from his own eyes. I was trapped amidst the stars for years. I did consider going mad, and sometimes wonder that I might have. The stars were my greatest comfort, for it is their nature too to burn, lonely, in the night."

The blank look on the Defence Professor's face was unnerving. "Eventually, almost two years ago, a man named Quirinus Quirrell found a Horcrux hidden in the folly of Riddle's youth, when he hoped for immortality by hiding lesser Horcruxes behind tests of skill and might. Quirrell was a Muggleborn adventurer, come to seek his fortune, with a vague fallback plan of teaching Muggle Studies at Hogwarts. I had more presence of mind than the Dark Lord's shade, and seized control. I suppose I shall owe Mr. Quirrell an apology when I can create a new body with the Stone, though this is something different from true possession and I doubt he will be permanently harmed."

A pang of sympathy for the original Quirrell tore through Harry, although he supposed that it was technically justified to steal someone's body for a few years, to escape eternity trapped alone with Voldemort. "So Voldemort..."

Professor Quirrell sighed, and he seemed to diminish somehow. "Nobody is immune to mistakes, Mr. Potter." He traced a symbol in the air with one unbroken finger movement, a triangle containing a line bisecting a circle.

"Thinking the Dark Lord truly lost, I sought the Resurrection Stone when you showed me its symbol. I found it upon a ring that Voldemort had long ago made into a Horcrux - by sheer chance, he had targeted the ring, not the Stone - and hidden in the ruins of his grandparents' home."

The foul bird in the corner fluttered its wings.

"In retrospect, I ought to have burned the place to the ground with Fiendfyre and then sought the Hallow, which may have escaped even that curse, and yet I learned too late the value of unsubtlety. Some curses, such as the Parselmouth curse, are more effective and easier to cast if they bind the caster as well. The Dark Lord, clever even as a youth, had cursed the ring to compel any who came upon it to covet it, to protect it, to wish to own and use it for themselves, bypassing any shield, and had made up for such a powerful effect by having it apply to himself tenfold."

A sick feeling was growing in the pit of Harry's stomach again. _I'm sorry, Headmaster_. "The curse identified you as the caster and overwhelmed you. You made the Resurrection Stone your Horcrux, and now, with its magic, the Dark Lord's shade can move freely. Voldemort possessed Professor Sprout, and framed Hermione, and set the troll on her."

Professor Quirrell nodded gravely. "The Dark Lord is half-mad, Mr. Potter, but still not stupid. He strikes blindly at you. He Transfigured the troll from the cloak I was wearing on the day the Headmaster identified me to the wards, and used an old ritual to transfer a true troll's magic to it."

Harry clenched a fist. "What way can you conceive to eliminate the Dark Lord _permanently_, Professor?"

"Further Cruciation. Obliviation. The Draught of Living Death. The Dementor's Kiss may suffice, although I doubt it. Dropping his wand into the pit of Azkaban, although that would only affect the Dark Lord if he had a body, and the wand would swiftly be broken down by the Dementors. Invoking some sort of truly greater, insurmountable magical effect may work, such that from that day forward the world would be without the Dark Lord... in fact, I think there may be something quite close by."

The white king was alone on the board, now.

"First we heal you, Professor. Then we resurrect Hermione, and then we make sure the Dark Lord never mildly irritates us again."

Professor Quirrell laughed grimly, and behind him, the bird of black fire spread its wings and gave a warped, crackling cry.

"And of course, Mr. Potter, _what I have ssaid in thiss room iss no lie: am Horcruxx-copy of Dark Lord imprinted on pureblood-lord-hero, greater Horcruxxxesss presserve Dark Lord copiess ssuch asss mysself, Dark Lord livess, half-mad, he attacked girl-child friend_."

The cry came once more, louder.

Harry nodded curtly, and stepped onto the back rank, trapping the king. "Checkmate."

The white king's crown fell at his feet, and the next door swung open.


	4. Playing Chess, Final: Cheating

The room after the one adjoining the chess room (which had revealed nothing of interest after the Fiendfyre bird had flown through) contained Potions equipment and ingredients, but Professor Quirrell produced a flask from his robes and poured it over the flames that had sprung up in the opposite doorway. He flicked his wand, and a number of ingredients vanished.

A wall of solid blackness had appeared in the doorway.

"Mr. Potter, when I dispel this barrier, you must remain beneath the True Cloak of Invisibility until I say so. That is a categorical order. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded, taking the Cloak from his pouch and pulling it over his shoulders.

"_Ansswer in Parsseltongue._"

"_Sshall remain beneath Cloak until otherwisse ordered_."

Professor Quirrell stooped down and pulled the corner of the Cloak over himself, standing as far away from Harry as possible. The sense of doom was more bearable now that Harry knew its provenance, but it was still uncomfortable.

Harry looked incredulously at Professor Quirrell. "Two people can wear the Cloak at once?!"

"It would appear so, yes. You already knew that it was not necessary for the Cloak to cover your entire body, did you not?"

Harry smacked the side of his own head, none too gently. That had been rather a lot of wasted effort in Azkaban.

The black barrier melted away.

The mirror in the centre of the room looked less like a mirror and more like a portal to a copy of the rooms behind Harry. It was framed in ornate gold, with wrought golden feet. The mirror did not look balanced, nor did it appear fixed to the floor. It was simply there, more solid by far than the walls and floor surrounding it, like a singular fixed and determined point relative to Earth's motion, no more moveable than the universe itself.

The Defence Professor gestured Harry around to the back of the mirror, which was plain gold, then hissed "_It iss ssafe_."

Harry stowed away the Cloak.

"This, Mr. Potter," said Professor Quirrell, taking on once more the tones of a lecturer, "is the last known surviving relic of Atlantis. Merlin called it the Mirror of Erised; Olga Xenda, supposed tutor of Baba Yaga, named it the Mirror of Vec; some scholars name it the Mirror of Noitilov; and a few scattered ancient records refer to it simply as _Nillits_."

"I take it you can't brute-force this one, Professor?"

Professor Quirrell smirked. "It is said that the Mirror of Noitilov perfectly reflects _itself_. It is the safest, most secure object in existence, having survived the Flood of Atlantis that wiped our forebears out of Time. It can be used to hide and trap objects and people, and it is where Dumbledore has hidden the Philosopher's Stone. No, Mr. Potter, I rather doubt Fiendfyre will have much of an effect upon it."

"What does it actually do?"

"It has perfect, unchallengeable power over all that it reflects, and can create alternate worlds, though only those as large as what it can reflect. Its power is supposedly based on the innermost feelings and desires of its viewer."

That didn't sound like a very satisfying explanation, and Harry said so.

The head tilted. "Hmm. Tell me, student of Muggle arts, what do the runes near the top of the Mirror say?"

The runes were simple, bold black lines and dots, curving gracefully and coming to abrupt, straight stops, looking quite unlike any writing system Harry had ever seen. Harry had had trouble enough with Latin. "I'm sorry, Professor, I don't recognise-"

"Read them anyway. _Not dangerouss._"

Harry looked once more at the runes, and opened his mouth. "Noitilov detalo partxe tnere hoc ruoy tu becafruoy ton wohsi." Harry looked away, blinking. That first rune was _noitilov_, and it meant what you _detalo partxe_ so that it was _tnere hoc_ -

It was almost impossible to describe: the runes didn't seem to relate to any other concepts, didn't form words in his head... Harry couldn't visualise the runes when he looked away, let alone transliterate them...

Harry shook his head and reinforced his Occlumency barriers, but felt the same effect.

"I take it you do not understand, then? A pity."

Harry had a sudden thought. "Voice recorder," he said to his pouch. Muggle technology didn't work very well at all in Hogwarts, as Harry's experiments had shown, but the pouch seemed to block or escape the magical field, and something this simple would take at least a few minutes to be severely affected - especially with Harry's own additions.

He read the runes aloud once more.

Harry turned his back on the Mirror and took a Quotes Quill from his pouch, then pressed the "play" button. The Quill scratched mechanically over a scrap of parchment.

_Noitilov detalo partxe tnere hoc ruoy tu becafruoy ton wohsi._

"Um... 'I show not your face, but your coherent extrapolated volition.'"

Professor Quirrell was staring at him.

And then he began to laugh.

Harry had seen Professor Quirrell smile before, and give short, sardonic chuckles, but this was wild, genuine laughter, almost like Dumbledore had done when Harry had blackmailed him. Harry had never once expected to see the dignified and mysterious Defence Professor double over, clutching at his sides, but there he was.

Professor Quirrell collected himself with visible effort. "Ah, Mr. Potter," another chuckle, "I was about to say that it is known that even the greatest artefact can be defeated by a lesser, yet specialised counter-artefact," another burst of laughter, "and yet I never expected the last legacy of Atlantis to be brought low by a Muggle cassette tape."

Harry felt he was entirely justified in grinning smugly. _Modern Muggles one, ancient Atlanteans zero._

"Well. That alone was worth the visit, and reaffirms what I suspected. The Mirror is a device intended to grant wishes, and to prevent the end of the world in such a way by showing a _coherent extrapolation_ of the user's desire. Perhaps the Mirror transports those reflected therein to alternative universes... Or perhaps it simply traps people and objects in a point of time, as some tales describe. Now, Mr. Potter, to the task of retrieving the Stone."

The Defence Professor rolled up his sleeves, flicked his wand and said "_Kulyok_." A translucent, silvery-looking pouch appeared in the palm of his hand. "This pouc- pardon me, this pouch should collect anything the Mirror disgorges, and block any curse or contact poison applied." Quirrell grinned. "You see, there is a rather nasty potion known as Bahl's Stupefaction, of which Alastor Moody is fond. When contacted or imbibed, it has interesting effects on the cunning. The Dark Lady who called herself Lethae, dosed with such a potion, once kidnapped and attempted to interrogate one of her enemies in exchange for the lives of his friends. Her enemy was known to be clever and underhanded, so she confiscated all of his belongings down to the clothes on his back, abducted him to a graveyard of all places, went so far as to force him to make an Unbreakable Vow, made vivid and terrifying threats against all he loved, and raised wards against any conceivable intervention. Unfortunately, due to the Stupefaction she neglected to take his wand, and he shot her whilst she was busy monologuing."

Harry made a mental note to see if he could get Fred and George to slip some of that stuff into Draco's cornflakes.

Hidden beneath the Cloak, the two circled round to confront the Mirror of Erised.

**OoOoO**

The Mirror of Noitilov stood, solidly anchored - although, in fact, it looked more like the Mirror was anchoring the rest of the Universe. If Harry hadn't known that the Earth was in fact moving through space at enormous speeds, and more to the point that all motion was relative, he might have thought that all reality was centred on the Mirror.

"Do you have any ideas, Mr. Potter?"

Harry thought.

"Why is the Stone in the Mirror in the first place, Professor?" It would make some sense, and be _exactly Dumbledore's style_, to set up a vast system of incredibly easy traps guarding a Mirror that could show the viewer's heart's desire (which could be an excellent motivator for a student) and _just so happened_ to _also_ be the last legacy of Atlantis, the obvious and most secure hiding place for anything, and then actually keep the Philosopher's Stone in his sock drawer. Or, in fact, his pocket, so the would-be thief would have to duel Dumbledore...

"Do you know the history of Baba Yaga, child?"

"Only vaguely." After the school's reaction to her name at the beginning of the year, Harry had looked up the "undying" witch, and found standard fairy-tale fare. She had supposedly been a shapeshifting, immortal Dark Witch who had lived for centuries and vanished some time after teaching Battle Magic at Hogwarts. It was said that she devoured naughty children, which was used as a threat by parents of children too young to wonder what possible motive an immortal Dark Lady would have to enforce childhood discipline with cannibalism.

"Baba Yaga lived far longer than any other recorded witch or wizard, and there is evidence of her shifting forms at will, though she was never said to be a Metamorphmagus in her youth. She held the Stone of Permanence, obviously."

Actually, there was something more important...

"Professor, sorry to interrupt, but how is the Stone made? I saw an alchemical recipe-"

"A lie. Simple misdirection, intended to frame possession of the Stone as some earned right, to soften the blow." He scowled. "Magic is not permanent, as a general rule. One of the greatest feats of Merlin himself was the permanent Conjuration of the Most Ancient Hall of the Wizengamot, and he made no habit of such magic."

Professor Quirrell gave Harry a calculating look.

"The Stone was clearly intended as a healing device. In addition to its primary power, it can perform with a touch feats of healing beyond Muggles or wizards, delicate and obscenely complex and powerful healing magic. The Stone's abilities are eldritch even by my standards. Therefore, the Stone must be unique, and_ very_ old indeed."

"Oh." That was objectively the worst news Harry had heard in quite a while. He had entertained the prospect of some sort of mass-manufacture of Philosopher's Stones to provide immortality to the masses, and before learning what the Stone did, he'd even briefly wondered if anyone had ever actually tried to turn the Atlantic into Elixir of Life.

"Disappointing, I quite agree. Still, what magic has made, magic may yet make again. Regardless, some six centuries ago, Baba Yaga taught at Hogwarts. Lest she do any harm to the students or faculty, or they to her, an ancient device called the Goblet of Fire was used: Baba Yaga would spill none of the students' or faculty's blood, and take nothing of theirs, and they would extend her the same courtesy."

Professor Quirrell looked speculatively at the ornate edges of the Mirror.

"In her sixth year of Hogwarts was a beautiful, clever, horrifically evil witch named Perenelle. She seduced the Dark Lady over the months, and exhorted her to use her power of transformation to take the form of a man. The Goblet counted what followed as the shedding of Perenelle's blood and the taking of her virginity, and so Perenelle murdered the forsworn Dark Witch, and took for herself the Stone."

Professor Quirrell paused. "Of course, one does not survive six centuries without achieving at least a little cunning. Perhaps the entire story was concocted such that Baba Yaga could start a new life. It is entirely possible that that story, which took quite some effort to uncover, is merely another layer of misdirection, and that "Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel" are really Baba Yaga and Perenelle _pretending_ to be Perenelle pretending to be both herself and her husband, and beyond that I cannot predict at what level she or they play."

"And the Mirror?"

"Ah, yes." Quirrell withdrew from his robes a golden sceptre, which should have been too large to fit. "I arranged for an inscription to be uncovered, claiming that this device could track the Stone wherever it lay, then carried out an ostentatious theft bearing the mark of Voldemort's hand. I believe the Stone's holder, whom I shall call Perenelle for the sake of brevity, insisted that the Mirror be used, which alone might evade even the greatest scrying."

"So Dumbledore hid it in the Mirror. What if only he can retrieve it?"

"The Mirror must be fair. It cannot be set to distinguish an individual. It can act only upon its viewer's hopes and dreams."

"How about, 'the individual must know that the password is- ' wait, no, it has to involve the viewer's wishes... Could the Mirror be set to only respond if the viewer's wishes perfectly align with Dumbledore's?"

Quirrell tapped his cheek. "Possibly. It seems unlikely, however, that the Mirror would be so exclusive..."

"Could you Confund yourself into being like Dumbledore?"

"Even if I could do so convincingly, the Mirror sees through such lesser effects. It is claimed that even Obliviation will not fool the Mirror. It would be utterly impossible to trick the Mirror by simply assuming Dumbledore's persona."

"Well, in what circumstances would Dumbledore want the Stone to be retrievable?

Quirrell looked as though he wanted to start pacing. "Mere circumstances will not matter to the Mirror - I begin to worry that this puzzle is insoluble. The Mirror must respond to a genuine volition, a true and heartfelt aspect of the viewer's real wishes, hopes, dreams, intentions... Ah. _Ah_."

The Defence Professor smiled unnervingly. He stepped out from under the Cloak and held out the translucent pouch in his left hand, gazing directly into the Mirror.

In the pouch, visible as though nothing were surrounding it, was a small chunk of shining scarlet stone, smooth and glassy and irregular. The pouch's appearance did not change upon contact with the Stone, but it somehow seemed more decisively real, fixed and solid.

_That's not fair,_ complained Ravenclaw. _How did he-_

Then the Professor vanished, but his reflection in the Mirror remained, alongside another one.

"Hello, David," said Albus Dumbledore.

**Author's Note:**

**_Seemss to me that__ ssubreddit'ss collective intelligencce sshould be ssufficcient to guess meanss of taking Sstone from Mirror with cluess given. Yess, Parsseltongue hass word for "ssubreddit"._**


	5. Smoke and Mirrors

"Hello, David," said Albus Dumbledore calmly. The old wizard's eyes glinted like sapphires. His robes were a deep indigo-purple, padded and seeming to follow his movements closely, such that they would not obstruct him. Fawkes perched on his shoulder, space-black eyes shining with righteous courage, like an unwavering flame. In Dumbledore's right hand was a long, slender wand of dark-grey wood, in his left the Line of Merlin Unbroken, and his magic was gathered about him like a cloak.

"Albus," replied the Defence Professor, inclining his head. David Monroe's icy eyes met the Chief Warlock's unflinchingly, his robes dark and reserved, a creature of cursed fire behind him, his own wand in his hand.

Dumbledore's eyes gave the sudden impression of X-raying the Defence Professor. "I have kept my promise, Quirinus, to make no enquiry into your identity, and yet one cannot help what one sees. It was Harry Potter's nature that convinced me, in the end." The eyes twinkled, and he spoke as though conversing over drinks. " I was most amused to find the boy forged in Lord Voldemort's image before me, blackmailing me for the sake of his fellow students. Such dark intellect, harnessed for the sake of Lily and James and Michael and Petunia's warmth and love! Tom, in his hubris, created a good Voldemort to oppose him."

Monroe did not look like he was enjoying a casual conversation. "It rather speaks volumes," he said dryly, "that it took Voldemort's own help for you to have a chance to defeat him."

Dumbledore smiled. "Oft evil will shall evil mar, as Tolkien put it. I wonder what Harry made of that observation... you two really are quite alike, you know."

Monroe smirked. "I shall take that as a compliment. Just this day I have seen our young associate unravel the Words of False Comprehension. Oh, and we two were the ones who seized Bellatrix Black from Azkaban."

Dumbledore nodded. If he was surprised at either revelation, he did not show it. "My own Patronus identified Harry's as the one that it detected in Azkaban. May I ask your intended purpose?"

Dumbledore's calmness and politeness would have set Harry on edge before, but he recognised that impulse as a habit inherited from Riddle, and discounted it.

There was a definite edge to Quirrell's voice. "Yes, you who would never think of sharpening a Hufflepuff's bones into spears." He reached into his robes and drew forth a bone-white wand that seemed horribly familiar, with a black ribbon tied around it. Thirteen and a half inches, yew, phoenix feather core... "I sought to find where Bellatrix had hidden the Dark Lord's wand. If it comes to it, I shall use a Portkey to drop it into the central pit of Azkaban."

Professor Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "I would call that inhumane, for any other than he."

Quirrell's tone was acid. "Inhumane. And yet you withhold the Philosopher's Stone from the world. Yes, Mr. Potter accompanied me here, because copies of the Dark Lord or not, we both at least comprehend the elementary ethical axiom that _death is bad_."

The old wizard sighed. "Quirinus, the Stone, please."

"Ah." There was no shift in the stance of either of the two, but there was sudden danger in the air. "You truly do not know what the Stone does, then. Frank and Alice-"

"I am resolved," said the Chief Warlock with iron in his tone, "to deafen myself to such claims, for Tom is too persuasive and too cunning for my judgement to be secure."

Professor Quirrell passed a hand over his eyes. "That is madness. There is a reason we call such paranoia an illness-"

In mid-sentence, the Defence Professor aimed his wand.

It happened before Harry could react, before he could shout a warning, before he could form the words of the Patronus Charm.

The Killing Curse struck Albus Dumbledore squarely in the chest.

The old wizard did not blink.

Fawkes spread his wings and cawed, the warm yet warning cry of the true phoenix. The dark-grey wand rose in front of Dumbledore like a sword, a wave of white fire ran up it and burst from the tip in a shower of sparks, and it was like Harry heard a sudden song, a paean of glory and battle, a hymn of victory.

_The Hallowed Wand_. Whilst he held that, Dumbledore was no more vulnerable than a Dementor - that was the part of Death's power bound into the Elder Wand.

The Peverells had had a taste for flashiness, it seemed.

Harry had thought he'd seen advanced magic before, but this he couldn't follow at all, it was just too far over his head, though he noted that Quirrell was moving like a Muggle martial artist but with inhuman grace, hissing echoing Words of Power, whereas Dumbledore was mostly standing his ground, occasionally waving the Elder Wand or murmuring something that would always overcome Quirrell's magic and show him gritting his teeth and gripping his own wand with both hands to resist.

Quirrell gestured, and the black-red-white false phoenix hissed and streaked at Fawkes.

Horror-struck, Harry waited for the creature of life and rebirth to be cursed into permanent death.

Fawkes screamed, and Professor Quirrell staggered. Dumbledore bellowed something ancient and terrible, and suddenly Fawkes was sheathed in golden fire, and he met his mockery in midair, talons blazing.

Quirrell began to incant something incomprehensible, cold and harrowing, but Dumbledore made a cutting motion and the rising sense of power vanished.

"The most powerful wizard alive" had most certainly not been an exaggeration.

Even if Harry had been able to make himself heard over the noise of the duel, even if the Mirror had let sound through in that direction, he wouldn't have known what to say. _Shut up and multiply - if Quirrell gets the Stone it could save hundreds of thousands of lives -_

_Do we trust Quirrell?_ asked Slytherin.

_Dumbledore doesn't know what the Stone does. Maybe he'd allow it to be used in a hospital if he did,_ argued Gryffindor.

Dumbledore raised his wand and swung it like a cricket bat, speaking words with sounds he shouldn't have been able to make and Harry shouldn't have been able to hear. The force of the resulting spell was such that Harry felt it even through the Mirror, setting his teeth on edge and his hair on end. Quirrell's eyes widened, and he was forced to conjure a burnished silver shield, which showed no sign of damage when the spell struck, but rang with a pure, chilling note.

With a bolt of quicksilver and a sound like gunshot, Quirrell managed to force Dumbledore onto his back foot, but it was obviously hopeless. Quirrell had Slytherin's lore, and all the Dark Lord's hoarded knowledge on top of that, but Dumbledore was even more skilful, not to mention invulnerable.

"_Singularis Nex!_"

"_Lux Argentus_."

A bolt of white lightning impacted upon a mote of pure blackness, which swelled and burst, reforming into a swarm of daggers that converged on Quirrell, who popped like a soap bubble and appeared by his opponent's side. He waved his wand and Dumbledore was surrounded by a vast sphere of solid steel, glowing with enchantment, which Quirrell tapped with the Philosopher's Stone.

For the briefest moment, Harry thought Monroe might have won.

Then the shell glowed cherry-red and white-hot, and the solid steel consumed itself. Fawkes gave a victorious cry, and shredded the false phoenix into scattered flames. The scraps of Fiendfyre danced ineffectively around Dumbledore.

"It was foolish of you to try this, David," came the old voice, gently.

"Think you can last another twenty hours, Albus?" spat Monroe.

_Lose, Professor,_ begged Harry silently, _if there's ever a time to lose it's when the enemy is literally invincible..._

With a whip-cracking motion, a line of fire impacted Quirrell's shields and slammed him into the Mirror-wall. Dumbledore advanced on him, wand level.

The Defence Professor vanished, and did not reappear.

_What the-_

PAIN.

Darkness coiled around Harry, holding him and binding him so deeply that he didn't know where he ended and the darkness began.

Harry doubled over, crying out, and then it was over as Quirrell reappeared next to him, covered too by the Cloak of Invisibility, subject no more to the Mirror's power.

Harry could feel it, feel the magic start to resonate, but it was nothing like as bad as in Azkaban. _Possession doesn't count as being anywhere near as powerful as the Killing Curse, clearly._

Quirrell slashed his wand like a dagger over his left wrist, and his hand winked out of existence and in its place arose a shimmering red barrier over the Mirror of Erised.

The shreds of Fiendfyre burned through the wall of Hogwarts and up through the earth.

The sense of doom, previously muted, rose to intolerable heights as Quirrell's arm linked around Harry's, shielded only by robes, and then they shot out and up through the tunnel, taking them beyond Hogwarts' wards.

Distantly, Harry heard Dumbledore shatter Quirrell's ward, and the old wizard reappeared, borne up by Fawkes-

A tug behind his navel, and the world vanished.


	6. Interlude: Conspiracy Theories

Professor Quirrell threw away his wand as though it had caught fire, lurched away from Harry, and blurred down into his Animagus form.

Harry pressed his hands over his eyes, waiting for the pain to fade.

_We did it. Professor Quirrell has the Stone._

Harry exhaled slowly. Transfiguration was powerful enough already, and now they had the power to make it permanent.

You couldn't Transfigure specific people, of course, and nor could you Transfigure lost books, but bizarrely enough you _didn't_ need perfect knowledge of what you were making to Transfigure it - Professor McGonagall didn't have an encyclopaedic knowledge of porcine biology, and Harry didn't know the precise specifics of a rocket. In fact, even steel was complicated: there were different sorts of steel with different amounts of carbon and other additives. Transfiguration could clearly get information from _somewhere_ that wasn't the caster's brain.

Harry opened his eyes and saw for the first time his surroundings.

The floor was worn and grey with dust, stained oddly brown in places. A slashed painting hung crookedly above a ruined fireplace, cold ashes spilling out over the floor. Nearby was a chair with three legs torn off. The room looked like it had been _shredded_. The whole place felt uneasy, like the quiet aftermath of a storm.

Harry suppressed a shiver. _Ahem_, said Hufflepuff, _it might actually be a good idea to be afraid of magical haunted houses._

The snake lay unconscious on the dusty floor, a sealed silver pouch behind it. Harry couldn't _Innervate_ Professor Quirrell, and he wasn't sure that it was possible to shake a snake awake. Absently, Harry wondered how the rules for Animagus transformations worked - if you touched the Stone to an Animagus, were they trapped forever? What happened if you turned into an Animagus while holding an indestructible magical artefact, then died?

It was probably a good idea to start planning the best applications of the Stone, so Harry closed his eyes and thought.

Transfiguration seemed even more strange the more that Harry considered it. The universe, or the Source of Magic, or whatever, would obligingly fill in all the necessary information about nerve configurations and biochemistry and such if you said _give me a working pig from scratch_, but not if you said _give me a working Hermione Granger from scratch_. It would give you all the information you needed, and which you absolutely didn't already know, to Transfigure a computer, but not to Transfigure a nanofactory. That didn't necessarily mean that nanofactories were impossible - Harry had tried to Transfigure a computer _slightly_ more powerful than modern-day technology, and it hadn't worked either.

Harry had been slightly disturbed by the idea that a fully living pig had popped into being, then vanished. He had wondered what would happen if you tried to Transfigure a generic human like McGonagall had Transfigured a generic pig, but had dismissed the experiment as hideously unethical.

That pig had known how to stand up, so its brain had worked perfectly well. Could it have just been some sort of Platonic ideal pig? Probably not, since it would be perfectly possible to Transfigure, say, a pig with five legs... Had Harry been too dismissive of the idea that souls existed? The existence of Voldemort's Horcruxes was at least weak evidence for them, and it would at least explain why you couldn't Transfigure specific people.

You couldn't Transfigure magical objects, but you could Transfigure something magical into something mundane, so the Stone should cure things like lycanthropy. If magic was based on a marker gene, that probably wouldn't make the wizard into a Muggle.

That was when Harry made the obvious connection.

Wizards were essentially Muggles with magic. They counted as magical creatures, but that was only a genetic thing. It would be entirely theoretically possible to use gene therapy to make a Muggle magical.

You couldn't Transfigure the mundane into the arcane. You _could_ Transfigure all of a Muggle's genes into the exact same boring old chemical DNA, but with the genetic marker for magic - the Blood of Atlantis.

That would at a stroke extend people's lives massively, make them much, much safer... There were bound to be problems, but the number of lives saved would be enormous.

There was no reason the Universe _couldn't_ contain "I-win" buttons like the Philosopher's Stone.

Harry began to grin as the enormity of what had just happened hit him. He'd need to talk it over with Professor Quirrell, but things were looking good for world optimisation.

Harry opened his eyes and looked up.

He was looking at the tip of an outstretched wand.

The wand fell away. "Harry?" the man whispered.

_Bellatrix?_ was Harry's first, absurd thought. The man before Harry was tall and once-handsome, his beard unshaven and his hair long, but his eyes were dark and hollow, and he looked prematurely old, and thin - as though he'd been emaciated once, and never quite recovered. Yet his wand was perfectly steady, and he bore an air of danger and power that Harry had come to associate with powerful wizards.

And that was when Harry's brain finally made the connection, the conversation with Hermione that felt a lifetime distant. Harry looked directly into the eyes of Sirius Black.

_Do not react. You are an innocent little boy who has never seen a picture of Sirius Black before._

"Who- who are you?" Harry asked, tingeing his voice with nervousness.

"Oh, Harry," said the man, looking at him with strange, sad fondness. A note of confusion coloured Harry's mind. "You look just exactly like your father. But with your mother's eyes..."

Black trailed off, looking exceptionally uncomfortable, like he wanted to say something but had no idea how to. He sat down heavily in a padded chair that hadn't been there a moment ago.

"You knew my father?"

Black pressed his bony hands over his eyes.

"Oh yes. It was my fault, Harry, I'm sorry, I as good as killed them..."

_Can we ever have a conversation that's_ not_ cryptic?_ asked Gryffindor.

Black took a deep breath. "My name is Sirius Black. I was your father's best friend, and he named me your godfather."

Within himself, Harry barely flinched at all. His parents hadn't been perfect, hadn't been omniscient, he knew that well enough. On the outside, he looked appropriately horrified.

Black winced. "I know, I know what they all think about me. I didn't do it, Harry, not deliberately." He pulled up his sleeve, revealing a bare arm. "I wasn't the one who showed Voldemort where your parents were hiding." His voice hardened. "It was Peter."

"Um," said Harry, "what?" Pettigrew was the one almost all the conspiracy theories blamed... it wasn't wrong just _because_ the conspiracy theorists said it, in fact, if anything it was very weak evidence that Pettigrew really was to blame, but even so...

Black sighed, and conjured a chair for Harry. "Peter is a Metamorphmagus, he can change how he looks, and he used that in the war. He was working as a spy, and he turned it against us." In the dim, non-magical lamplight, Black's skin looked grey. "He came to me, asked where James and Lily were hiding. Please, Harry, understand that Peter and I had been friends for years. I thought he would have died under the Cruciatus before telling Voldemort anything. Like a fool, I told him, and..."

Black's voice trailed off.

_OK, could this be genuine?_

_Complexity penalty_, said Ravenclaw. _The problem is that actors this good are rare... probably not that rare amongst Death Eaters, though..._

"So, um, Mr. Black, how did you end up being blamed, then?" Innocent-Harry enquired tentatively.

"Just Sirius, Harry." Sirius withdrew a bar of Honeydukes' chocolate from his pocket and offered some of it it to Harry, who refused politely.

"James and Lily were killed, and I..." Black seemed to be struggling to get the words out.

"James and his family, they took me in - my own House disowned me because I wasn't stupid enough to hate Muggleborns. And Lily brought out the best in James, once he'd grown up a bit, she was like a sister to all of us. I don't know what else you've heard about them, Harry, but they really were some of the best people you could hope to meet."

Sirius took a bite of chocolate.

Harry was feeling strangely warm, like he hadn't quite felt since that day in the hallway with Severus. _I'm tentatively saying genuine_, said Slytherin. _Perfect Occlumens...es? Occlumentes? Are rare, and this doesn't sound like a lie._

_Motivated cognition,_ said the Inner Critic.

"Peter came to me, disguised as an Auror I knew fairly well. He said he'd tracked Peter to a Muggle neighbourhood. I was too angry and hurt to think straight, and I followed him. He'd kidnapped someone, fed them Polyjuice to look like Peter, bewitched them to shout about how I was a traitor. We were both Disillusioned, and he changed into me, dropped his Charm, and blew half the street apart before I had time to think."

"How did the real Peter escape, then?" asked Harry sceptically.

Sirius stood up abruptly and blurred into a large black dog, then back again. "Your father, Peter and I were all Animagi." Sirius' expression grew distant, and wistful. "Have you met Remus, Harry?"

Harry nodded.

Sirius looked carefully at him. "Remus is a werewolf."

"I see," said Harry. That explained a lot, actually - Mr. Lupin was a skilled wizard, and yet his robes were shabby and he drifted from one job to another; those scars on his face never faded. Werewolves were deadly even to some adult wizards, and unable to control their actions once transformed. They were also entirely harmless as long as they took Wolfsbane Potion once a month, which was reasonably cheap, and yet the Ministry didn't provide it for free to werewolves because people were stupid.

"We found that out about him by the end of our first year. Wolfsbane didn't exist at the time, so Dumbledore had put measures in place for him - the Hogwarts wards tracked him, and every month he came to this place," Sirius gestured around, "to transform safely."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "We're near Hogwarts?"

"Yes. I don't know how your scaly little friend over there knew about it, but this is the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. There's a loophole in the protective enchantments on Hogwarts. You can Portkey out through the Shack, but not in."

That made sense. Hogwarts' grounds were big - it had all happened too quickly to notice at the time, but now that Harry looked back they'd come nowhere near the boundary of the wards.

"Remus used to keep all sorts of things as Portkeys - twigs, combs, , and he always panicked when we asked what they were." Sirius smiled fondly. "He honestly thought we'd abandon him, the prat. Instead, the three of us learned to become Animagi - your father was a stag, Harry. Werewolves aren't very aggressive towards other animals, so that way we could keep him company, and be an extra layer of security. We started calling ourselves the Marauders, the greatest pranksters Hogwarts had ever seen."

Sirius's eyes were sparkling. "Speaking of which, I heard about your little escapade with those bullies. Not bad, young Prongslet, but it doesn't measure up to the one where we got McGonagall to- well, I'll tell you another time."

The smile vanished as though it had never been. "Anyway. Peter was a rat, which suited him down to the ground. When he blew the street apart and framed me, he changed forms and ran away just as the Aurors arrived."

Sirius smirked bitterly. "It was the second-best prank I've ever seen."

Silence reigned while Harry tried to digest all of that. It... didn't _entirely_ sound like something a real Death Eater would say, it was too _complex_, a hardened Dark Wizard would surely just claim they'd been Imperiused or tortured or something. That said, it had pulled his heartstrings perfectly, which was convenient.

Something in Harry felt repulsed at that thought, and it occurred to him again that that might be how he spent the rest of his life - never quite convinced that a smile was just a smile. Harry glanced over at Professor Quirrell. Harry had inherited Riddle's thought patterns and some fragments of memory. Quirrell had inherited an input of Riddle's entire mind. In that moment, Harry thought he might have begun to understand how Monroe had felt on that cold October night.

"So our magnificent justice system threw me into Azkaban without a trial. They never even stopped to wonder why Lucius stood by and let that one happen. And then, one day, while I was sitting there happily losing my mind, Dumbledore broke me out."

_OK, this is just silly_, said Slytherin. _It was plausible until now, but come on. I mean, conspiracy theories are all very well, but this is... what next? Were they rescued by, by Draco Malfoy in a Boeing 747? Did they melt through the steel walls of Azkaban with the jet _fuel_?_

_When most people try to make things up, it doesn't sound like this,_ said Ravenclaw. _A__nd unlikely things do happen. Shuffle a pack of cards, and it's probable that that permutation has never happened before..._

"Why would Dumbledore do that? How would he even know you were innocent?" asked Harry.

"Apparently, Peter, the idiot, came to Hogwarts in his Animagus form, searching for some cursed object old snake-face had apparently hidden there. Peter was never very powerful. He might have been able to run away and live in another country, but it must have been a bit of a disappointment. He went from a warrior for the Dark Lord to a rat on the run, and he obviously decided to go back to his old ways."

Sirius grinned, a curiously canine expression. "Sadly for him, the Marauders' legacy was alive and well. Your friends the Weasley twins happened to show a lovely little map we'd all made to their big brother Bill, who noticed that his brother's rat was called Peter Pettigrew, and ran to Dumbledore. A couple of Memory Charms later, and Bill was in St. Mungo's, Peter was Confunded to turn into me, and I was free."

_I quit,_ said Ravenclaw.

Harry put his head in his hands. _They really ought to start paying me more for all this_.

It had been horrible to do that to Bill... nothing like as bad as leaving someone in Azkaban, certainly, and Bill had recovered fully and, the twins had said, was now a curse-breaker for Gringotts.

That seemed like an unusually happy ending, and Dumbledore had shown every indication of caring for his students. Could the entire story of Bill's psychosis be pure fabrication? That should get a complexity penalty, but Harry wasn't even sure that was valid when Dumbledore was involved.

Sirius had been remarkably straightforward with Harry for an adult, and at that thought Harry's respect for him rose several notches. "Sirius... that whole story sounds..."

Peter Pettigrew, by all accounts, had been smart. He wouldn't risk everything to run back into enemy territory - _literally_ into the enemy castle - just to try to get some mysterious _thing_. On the other hand, Voldemort might well have left orders for his servants to try to retrieve Horcruxes after a given interval of time, just in case his creation didn't quite work as planned. Peter might have further supposed that some other Death Eaters had been given similar orders, and feared Voldemort's retribution if Peter had disobeyed orders...

Sirius gave a bark of laughter. "You're telling me, Harry."

Harry rubbed his forehead, then remembered that he was having a conversation with a man who was either a mass-murdering traitor or his caring godfather. "What have you been doing with yourself?"

A sigh. "Well, the war was done, and Moony- sorry, Remus was the only friend I had left in the world, and he'd spent years thinking I was evil. I knew he'd never forgive me anyway, for what I told Peter." Sirius looked down at his robes.

Harry was about to start talking about egocentric bias and how Remus Lupin wasn't the kind of person who would hold a grudge against someone for one stupid mistake, but then decided to shut up.

Sirius collected himself. "I ended up drifting back to Hogsmeade, and took over Honeydukes as 'Ambrosius Flume.'" Sirius gave an elaborate bow. "Sirius Black, ex-convict extraordinaire, mass-murdering Death Eater and purveyor of delicious sweets to children."

Despite himself, Harry snorted.

_OK. This is all starting to look like some kind of bizarre plot_, said Slytherin.

_Who could possibly benefit?_ asked Ravenclaw. _And why make it this complex? And this... well, this?_

_That story just doesn't sound right. Pettigrew's plot was complicated and needed extremely precise timing, but it went off without a hitch. It's... it looks like what Professor Quirrell arranged in the corridor. It looks set up._

Harry shook his head, as though to rid himself of the thought. "What are you doing here tonight?"

Sirius shrugged. "I live in Hogsmeade. The wards I put on this place when I was in school triggered for the first time in years, and I was curious."

_Who could possibly benefit from Peter Pettigrew framing Sirius Black, then being captured himself, then breaking Sirius out of Azkaban?_ asked Ravenclaw.

_What happened as a result of that?_ mused Slytherin.

Anyone behind this whole thing would have to be unbelievably good, or cheating somehow. Suppose somebody needed Sirius completely out of the way temporarily, for some reason, but still had use for him.

What happened with Sirius out of the way?

Well, Sirius would have been Harry's legal guardian, and in his absence Dumbledore had become Harry's guardian.

Dumbledore, who had given Harry to his parents.

Dumbledore, who "had some sort of foreknowledge".

Dumbledore, who was more than powerful enough to fake the whole thing, to make the scheme work by brute force.

Dumbledore, who had a taste for bizarre, incomprehensible plots.

Dumbledore, who understood the phoenix's price more than well enough to leave a friend in Azkaban for a few years.

Harry stayed silent for a moment.

"Look," said Sirius. "I know it sounds strange, and you're probably right not to trust me. Merlin knows your parents shouldn't have. But I'm not a Death Eater, Harry, not in a million years. _Expecto Patronum_."

A silver dog burst from the end of Sirius's wand, tail wagging.

_Genuine or not, __we __still shouldn't trust him_, murmured Slytherin.

Harry rubbed his temples in a circular motion. He wasn't in any immediate danger. He could afford to take a minute to be tired and confused and elated and horrified and not thinking straight.

Harry was starting to wonder if the universe was deliberately messing with _him specifically_.

"Good evening," came the dry voice of Professor Quirrell.

**Author's Note:**

**A/N: clues about the Mirror puzzle, which I now realise was probably much too hard:**

**1\. Even Quirrell can't fool the Mirror. It's something he genuinely wants to do. **

**2\. It's something to do with the fact that the Stone (unlike in HPMOR) can perform otherwise-impossible feats of healing, up to and including, for instance, healing the Longbottoms. **

**3\. It involves a backdoor Dumbledore programmed into the Mirror, in case he or an ally, for whatever reason, desperately needed the Stone for some specific purpose. Dumbledore doesn't know what the Stone does. He has, however, read enough books to _not_ seal away the Stone completely, especially when it comes to the most salient purpose that he has in mind.**


	7. The Snake and the Dog

Sirius leapt out of his chair so quickly that Harry barely saw him move. His wand, which had never left his hand, was pointed squarely at the Defence Professor's heart.

"Um, Sirius, that's an extremely bad idea," Harry said in growing alarm.

"Who are you?" demanded Sirius. He made no movements and spoke no spells, but Harry could see faint ripples, distortions in the air like a heat-haze, as magic layered itself around Sirius.

"He's not wrong, you know," said the Defence Professor idly, leaning against the wall.

"Answer the question," growled Sirius.

Quirrell looked distinctly unimpressed. "Professor Quirinus Quirrell. And put that wand away before you have someone's eye out with it."

"Is he with you, Harry?" Sirius asked in a controlled voice, never taking his eyes off Professor Quirrell, who was inspecting his fingernails.

"He is. And if he meant me any harm, I'd be dead by now."

Sirius hesitated, then sheathed his wand.

"Well. Sirius Black, the great traitor and mass-murderer. How did you manage to escape Azkaban, then?"

"None of your business."

"As truculent as ever, I see."

There was a moment of silence.

"So, what now?" Harry ventured.

"We leave this place at once. We are most fortunate that Dumbledore has not arrived already. Then-"

"Hold on," Sirius interrupted. "Where exactly are you taking Harry?"

"That," Quirrell retorted sharply, "is of no concern to you."

Harry tried and failed to think of something to say to dissipate the rising tension.

Something about Sirius's stance changed in a way that Harry's brain translated to a dog raising its hackles. "I happen to be his godfather."

Paying no notice, Professor Quirrell produced another Portkey from within his robes and tossed it to Harry. Wordlessly, he turned and stalked towards the half-rotten door, beckoning Harry with one hand.

Harry made to follow him.

Sirius reappeared before the door, and his wand was out again. "Where do you think you're going?"

Professor Quirrell closed his eyes briefly. "One perceives that the expression 'like a dog with a bone' is well-founded."

"I make the jokes around here, scaly."

"Professor?" asked Harry. "Why not just bring him with us?"

Sirius nodded firmly.

The Defence Professor gave Sirius an appraising look.

Finally, Professor Quirrell sighed. "Very well. I confess that I am curious about our canine companion's story. Now, must I remind the two of you that we are _still in enemy territory_?" Quirrell stepped smartly outside the Shack, past the boundary of the wards. He seized Sirius' wrist, and Harry noticed his godfather's hand tighten almost imperceptibly on his wand. Quirrell reached into his robes, nodded to Harry, and vanished.

Harry activated his own Portkey.

The evening air was crisp and clear. The Moon rose above the horizon, and a faint wash of stars was visible already.

Professor Quirrell waved his wand, and a ball of light appeared in midair, revealing a small, deserted farmhouse and a decrepit barn.

"Where are we?" asked Sirius warily.

"A deserted farm in Devon. It should do for our purposes tonight."

Professor Quirrell's voice had grown abruptly weaker, and he led them towards the barn with an irregular gait.

For a moment, it seemed to be an ordinary, empty barn. Then something bent and warped in the air, and it expanded tenfold, revealing a warm, spacious, well-lit room. There were countless shelves bearing potions ingredients, spare wands, odd-looking bits of jewellery, and several strange devices Harry didn't recognise. In the centre of the room, there was a groaning, rumbling noise, and a black altar surrounded by six black pillars arose from the floor.

"Well," said Professor Quirrell, "first things first."

Quirrell pressed his wand to himself, and suddenly he seemed to stand taller. His hairline spread out and forwards, his skin lost its pallor, and new flesh filled out his sickly, thin limbs.

Quirrell reached into his pocket and withdrew the Philosopher's Stone. For a moment, he held still; then he raised it to the light and examined it speculatively. For a moment, Harry thought he might have seen a grid of intricately-arranged points within it, but then the sight was gone.

Sirius seemed to be about to say something. Quirrell turned towards him, and then his hand darted forwards, passing cleanly through Sirius' shields, and touched the Philosopher's Stone to him.

It might have been a trick of the light, but the haunted, hollow look in Sirius's eyes seemed to ease, and he stepped back, blinking. "What just-"

Harry furrowed his brow. _How did the Stone even know what Professor Quirrell wanted it to do? And how can a _rock_ know how to fix a human brain?_

Quirrell smiled thinly. "Mr. Black, would you mind awfully explaining how you came to be out of Azkaban, and by all appearances not in fact a Death Eater?"

Sirius paused for a moment, nonplussed, then shrugged and began to tell his story. The words seemed to come to him more easily this time.

Quirrell raised his wand and traced a human shape in midair.

A man's body, cloaked in fine and flowing robes, spun into existence before the Defence Professor, held magically upright. The body's eyes were closed, and it did not breathe.

Quirrell tapped it with the Stone, then flicked his wand. From his pockets arose an assortment of objects Harry didn't recognise, which secreted themselves in the conjured body's pockets. The Defence Professor touched the body's limbs with his wand, tracing a line from shoulder to elbow, elbow to wrist, hip to knee, knee to foot, murmuring incantations.

At length, Sirius's story came to an end.

"Fal. Tor. Pan."

An echoing thunderclap pierced the air, and Professor Quirrell's body collapsed to the floor.

The conjured body's eyes opened, and they were the same shade as Quirrell's.

David Monroe's new body looked like Quirinus Quirrell's, but with deliberate mistakes. There were the same sharp features, the same icy eyes, but he seemed younger than he had all year, and somehow more clearly and decidedly present. Professor Quirrell stretched slowly, examining his new hands, opening and closing his fingers. "_Obliviate_," he said to the man on the floor, and his voice had all of its customary dry precision.

"Um," said Sirius, seeming to remember that he was an ostensibly-responsible member of the Order of the Phoenix, "should I be doing something about this?"

The original Quirinus Quirrell stirred feebly. "Free," he gasped.

"Ah, Mr. Quirrell," said the Defence Professor. "My apologies for the theft of your body." A lazy flick of the wand, and a coin purse appeared in Quirinus's hands, which Monroe tapped with the Stone. "Please accept this as my payment." Monroe muttered some kind of diagnostic spell, then nodded, seeming satisfied. Monroe offered his hand. The original Quirinus Quirrell took it and stood, slowly, incredulously, then turned and vanished with a dull pop.

David Monroe - Harry decided that it would be easier to just keep thinking of him as Professor Quirrell - turned back. "The time is come, Mr. Potter. Lay your ring upon the altar, dispel the Transfiguration, and I shall restore life as best I can. _Sshe sshall not be harmed in any manner, but resstored to true and lassting life._"

Heart hammering in his chest, Harry bent down and untied his shoelaces, ignoring something Sirius was spluttering about something or other being impossible. Carefully, he withdrew the solid-diamond ring and laid it upon the black marble altar.

"_Finite incantatem_."

Two-thirds of a corpse sprawled across the ebon stone, so cold and pale in death, standing out in sharp relief against the blackness.

Harry glanced away, holding himself together, pushing away all the memories, trying to ignore the image.

Professor Quirrell glided smoothly forwards and waved a hand over the body. Hermione's body straightened and oriented itself, clothed in new Hogwarts robes, unstained by blood or spellfire, and then Professor Quirrell pointed his wand and new flesh streamed forwards, reshaping itself into restored limbs.

Behind Harry, Sirius gave out a choked yell and made to approach the Defence Professor.

"Stay back," said Quirrell, perfectly calmly. "This procedure is exceedingly complex." He pointed his wand at the obelisks, and they began to chant in deep, echoing tones that Harry thought sounded vaguely like Greek.

Hermione's body started to become less pale, less twisted, seeming almost asleep.

"Harry," came Sirius's voice, gently, too gently, "I'm sorry, but she's not coming back. Don't get your hopes up. Whatever your... friend is trying to do, it won't work. The closest he could get is an Inferius, and that's the last thing anyone would-"

"Prediction noted," Harry managed. "She's not- her brain should be OK. I used- I used Muggle knowledge to keep her brain safe after she died, and she's been kept mostly static by the Transfiguration, and we have the Stone..."

Sirius laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm not going to patronise you, Harry. She's dead. Her soul has moved on. She's never coming back."

"And what if she does?" Harry said suddenly. "Does that mean she won't have a soul? What do you actually expect to see?"

Sirius was silent for a moment. Then he looked intently at Harry. "Well... if she does, and she is who she always was, then a lot of people are very, very wrong."

"Muggles can already bring people back from the dead sometimes. There are people whose hearts have stopped, and Muggle healing can make them start again. Not always, but sometimes."

Sirius looked thoughtful, and said no more.

Hermione's body was surrounded by a pale-blue glow, which Professor Quirrell had said would keep her perfectly static and preserved.

The Defence Professor turned and vanished upon the spot. A few moments later he reappeared, stowing a Time-Turner away under his robes. In his hand were two pebbles, one white and one black.

"What was all that about?"

The Defence Professor was humming a small tune to himself.

"The Philosopher's Stone, as it turns out, Mr. Potter, is very useful. All will become clear."

Quirrell took a piece of oddly bright white chalk from one of his pockets, and began to trace a circle on the floor, adding careful, precise flourishes that glimmered oddly in the magical light.

"There is an old ritual that can sacrifice a magical creature to transfer its magical nature to one within the circle. Transfiguration sickness is a tricky business, and there is no use in taking chances. Besides, I would really rather not go through all this again."

Amid the other questions that were competing for priority, Harry remembered one in particular.

"Professor? May I just ask, when you were in the Mirror with the Headmaster, why didn't you just _show_ him what the Stone can do?"

Professor Quirrell did not look up from where he was drawing the circle on the floor.

"The Dark Lord _planned_," he began, "that Voldemort should _lose_. He was mindful of the mistakes of the Dark Evangel, who tried to introduce herself as the 'Walking Catastrophe' and 'Apostle of Darkness', but panicked and called herself the 'Apostrophe of Darkness'. And so when his walking joke of a Dark Lord was seen as a serious threat, he lost any respect for Dumbledore, and to a certain degree I suppose that influenced me."

"Why were you influenced by _Voldemort_ in the first place?" Sirius interjected. "And how do you know-"

"I _am_ partly Voldemort, Mr. Black."

There was silence for a moment, then Sirius shook his head. "You know what? Fine. Of course you are."

"The Dark Lord used incredibly dark magic to copy his mind onto mine. No, I am not as evil as he. If you would like to hear the details, please feel free to never ask about it again."

Quirrell still didn't look up from his inscription.

"As I was saying, you discovered for yourself, Mr. Potter, that it is a personal flaw of Riddle's that he consistently underestimates other people. Well, 'underestimate' is not quite accurate: he does not consider other people to be players of the game in any respect. Your failure in your first battle against Sunshine was, in part, your heritage from Riddle. And so it did not occur to me at the time to try to reason with Dumbledore."

Professor Quirrell stood up, and turned to regard Hermione. He raised his wand and the circle flared brightly. A thought seemed to strike the Defence Professor, and he tapped the line of the circle with the Stone. "Finite," he then said to the circle.

The circle of brightness remained, and Quirrell made a pleased sound. "That proves that. The Stone makes magic a fixture in such a way that it is as though there is no magic at all. This circle is magical, and yet it cannot be dispelled because there is nothing to dispel. "

From his hand fell the two pebbles, and they landed in the circle and swelled into the shapes of a unicorn and a mountain troll.

Before Harry could even begin to process this, Quirrell pointed his wand at the two creatures and muttered, "Thuo tei dunamei," then slashed it towards Hermione.

The two creatures crumbled to dust, and then that too faded from sight.

"Transfiguration sickness is nothing before a troll's healing, and a unicorn's blood will preserve life even at the brink of death. Miss Granger will suffer no ill effects, but live as though she always had that power. No lesser force or magic shall slay her."

"Thank you," whispered Harry. The Defence Professor was clearly in a _very_ good mood.

Professor Quirrell nodded, and Harry didn't quite catch the odd look in his eyes.

"Now, the first problem: this is the enchanted body of a dead Muggle. The brain could be awakened rather easily, perhaps, but I do not know if her own magic would return."

"I did some research," said Harry's lips automatically, "and I think magic is probably just passed on by a marker gene. Coming back to life shouldn't change that."

"Perhaps. I am not convinced... There may be a better solution." Professor Quirrell glanced towards Sirius. "Sacrificing a wizard to this ritual is a possibility-" Professor Quirrell caught Harry's sharp look, and rolled his eyes. "Very well. There exists another ritual that would solve the matter, but finding her enemy's blood, father's bone and servant's flesh would take time."

"Let me try something," Harry said, struck by a sudden thought. He stepped forwards and raised his wand to point at Hermione.

Harry pushed down the joy that was slowly mounting. It wasn't enough, wasn't good enough. There were still people dying even as Harry tried to save this one. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions who had already been lost. Billions more, who _would_ have done whatever it took, torn reality apart to bring that someone back.

They had failed, or never dared to try, or hope. Most of the world, even the magical world, had come to the conclusion that death was inevitable. The prospect of resurrection had barely even crossed their minds.

"Professor," said Harry, "this might work better if I can see the stars."

Quirrell gave a single nod, and spoke the spell of the Silent Night.

Harry stood in the depths of the sky, lit by the unwavering light of countless stars.

It hadn't quite struck him before. Here, tonight, beneath the starlight, he would begin. He had already resolved to _end_ death, but that wasn't enough, nowhere near enough. _Death should not be_, he thought, _and never should have been_. There was hope, here, in this world of Time-Turners and Philosopher's Stones and phoenixes.

Harry would not stop with saving the living. He would not stop with saving Hermione.

Harry would not stop until he had saved every single one, wizard or witch or Muggle or house-elf or goblin or centaur or anything else he couldn't imagine, rescued everyone who had ever fallen into Death's hands.

Harry would not stop until he realised that dream, until he could watch the Sun go out alongside every single person the human species - and any other thinking species - had ever lost.

_We don't have to put up with it. Nobody, ever, will have to spare a moment to think about the ones who died before they could be helped. I refuse to lose, or to have lost._

"Expecto, PATRONUM!"

And there was light.

Hermione Granger took her first breath for the second time.

Hermione's body was bathed in silver fire, even as Harry staggered. Some of the life and magic he'd just lost would never return to him, he knew. It wasn't much, barely even noticeable, but what he had lost would never return. That sacrifice was permanent.

Professor Quirrell touched Hermione's forehead with the Stone, and though Harry's Patronus faded away, some of that silver fire yet remained about her.

The sphere of stars slowly faded away.

And then two unfamiliar voices spoke, "Avada Kedavra."

Harry Potter and David Monroe collapsed to the floor, dead.


	8. Shut Up And Multiply, Part One

Sirius Black was feeling distinctly out of his depth.

He didn't _know_ his godson. Dumbledore had offered to introduce him to Harry before, but he'd refused. The boy had never known his parents -_ thanks to you_, said the voice that even the supposed Philosopher's Stone hadn't silenced - and Sirius hadn't thought he'd want to meet the man who'd consigned them to death.

And now here Harry was, and everything was happening so quickly - better than Sirius had thought it would, he'd thought Harry would hate him, but even so...

_Sirius burst through the doors of Godric's Hollow, horror rising inside him. It took him three tries to cast Lumos._

_The ceiling had sagged dangerously, and the centre had given way entirely. The room was caked in plaster dust, and a liquid that seemed black as pitch in the wandlight._

_James Potter lay somehow untouched by rubble, his glasses still on, spread-eagled. His wife lay some distance away from him, on top of the collapsed ceiling, the splinters of her wand still clutched in broken fingers._

It was easier than it had ever been for Sirius to turn his mind away. Ever since "Quirinus Quirrell" (though as far as Sirius was concerned, if that was the man's real name, his was Elvendork) had used what was apparently the Philosopher's Stone on him, he'd felt more _whole_ somehow, and certain memories were staying at the back of his mind where they belonged. Happier thoughts were coming to him more easily now than they had since before Azkaban.

He _had_ thought about what Harry was trying to do now, after that night, in a manner of speaking. He'd wanted to make James' and Lily's deaths _not have happened_, but he had never really thought that he could _do_ anything after the fact.

Harry cast the Patronus Charm, and Sirius felt a surge of pride - it was an extremely advanced spell for an eleven-year-old.

It should have been impossible, but the girl was _breathing_.

"_Vitalis Revelio_," Sirius murmured.

She was alive.

Quirrell was still looking absently at some part of the floor, which had shown a cluster of stars, his mind clearly elsewhere.

At that moment, Sirius's ears popped, and he felt the unmistakable sensation of an Anti-Apparition Jinx failing. He frowned. The Jinx on this place was only one-way, so there was no reason for Quirrell to-

"_Avada Kedavra_!"

The Killing Curse hit Quirrell in the back from point-blank range.

Sirius dived aside in an agile motion, firing curses in an indiscriminate arc.

The bolts bent in mid-air and curved around the figures of two unfamiliar women.

The first was dark-haired and pale, wrapped in a heavy black felt cloak of an unrecognisable style. She held no wand, but bore in her hand a dark staff of twisted wood. Her face was young, but her eyes were deep, dark and old. Despite her physical youth, she gave off an impression of terrible age, an ancient quality that whispered of forgotten magic and old curses.

Beside her was a woman who looked just as youthful. She was blonde and willowy, and held a long and slender wand. Despite her unassuming appearance, the sense of magic about her was strong, and her grey eyes were cold and sharp.

Sirius glanced back towards the altar, and his heart stopped.

His godson, Harry James Potter, lay on the ground. His eyes were open and glassy, his mouth open, glasses askew. He looked almost exactly like James Potter had, that night-

"Recognise this one, Perry?" asked the dark-haired figure.

"No. Might as well- ah!"

Sirius roared and loosed a blistering bolt of lightning at the woman, who stepped back and barely caught it on the end of her wand.

The blonde recovered quickly and slashed her own wand.

Sirius staggered backwards, snarling, a chunk of his shielding torn away. He rolled his shoulders and adjusted his grip. He was out of practice, but he had once been able to out-duel Mad-Eye two times out of three. Harry's murderers would _not_ escape alive.

The dark-haired one paid no attention. She gestured at Quirrell's body, and a wand rose up from it and flew into her hand. A black ribbon tied to it vanished in a flash of flame.

Sirius circled his left hand, and a blue haze arose before him. He dodged left and brought his wand around in a wide sweep-

The blonde witch clicked her fingers and suddenly Sirius was flat on his back, winded. He sprang to his feet and rolled aside, hurling curses that winked out of existence or splashed harmlessly against shields.

Then the older-seeming witch tapped her staff on the ground and disrupted most of his wards. Sirius ducked another Killing Curse and barely blocked an unfamiliar brown hex. This was _insane_, there were barely a dozen wizards in the entire world on this power level-  
His fingers numbed on his wand as he struggled to parry another curse.

He set his teeth. He wasn't ready to join James and Lily - _and Harry_, he thought with another burst of guilt - just yet.

"Remembering why we retired, B?" asked the blonde idly. "It's just no _fun_ any more."

There was a white-blue flash, and Sirius dropped to one knee helplessly, his resolve gone. It was hopeless. It was almost like trying to fight Dumbledore.

Darkness began to build around the edges of his vision.

**OoOoO**

He was underwater, and underground, and on fire, and in the sky, and amongst the stars...

Harry felt a sensation that he recognised from the Cloak of Invisibility, like touching his wand for the first time, like an inaudible song.

For a single absurd moment, Harry thought he might have been in the afterlife.

Then his brain caught up to him. _So this is what a Horcrux feels like._

The adrenaline - well, Harry didn't _have_ adrenaline any more, but that was still what it felt like - was fading away. With a jolt, Harry realised that the stars were _all_ around him, all three-hundred and sixty degrees.

_May I point out_, said Harry's Inner Slytherin, _that we just DIED?_

It was difficult to have any sense of immediacy, here amongst the stars.

_Mr. Potter?_

_Professor? Is that you?_ said Harry in his thoughts. The phrase that came to him to describe the experience was "thinking loudly". Harry could sense the Horcrux system now, notice Professor Quirrell's presence.

_I can't imagine who _else_ you might have been expecting!_ There was a definite sense of agitation in Quirrell's... thought? _It is imperative that we return_ NOW._ I suggest-_

_I have an idea_.

Harry focussed on the inaudible song of the Resurrection Stone in the back of his mind, and visualised the scene in Professor Quirrell's workshop, willing himself to be present.

**OoOoO**

Sirius slammed everything he had into the strongest shield he could to block an area-effect curse.

_Sirius!_ sounded Harry's voice. _Let me in!_

_What?!_

_JUST DO IT!_

It was unmistakably Harry, and even if it wasn't Sirius didn't exactly have anything to lose. He consciously relaxed his defences-

**OoOoO**

Inhabiting his godfather's body was a _strange_ experience. He was too tall, and the wand didn't suit him-

Harry aimed Sirius' wand at Professor Quirrell's body, remembered Hermione's resurrection, and shouted, "_Expecto Patronum_!"

It felt almost sacrilegious using the Patronus Charm so _casually_, as a _combat tactic_, but Harry's inner models of Alastor Moody and Professor Quirrell were glaring at him for that thought.

The magic had flowed from Harry, not Sirius. _Interesting_, said Ravenclaw, _that implies-_

_SHUT UP,_ hissed the rest of Harry.

Sirius's shield fell, and two curses winged towards him.

They burst into rainbow sparks as the Defence Professor rushed forwards through the air like a ghost given form.

Harry pointed Sirius's wand again, and cast the Patronus Charm at himself.

Harry woke up in his own body. No magic had been lost, that time, but it hadn't been pleasant. C-L-O-A-K, he signed in his pouch, and drew the Cloak of Invisibility over himself.

Behind him, discreetly, wards rose up around the altar where Hermione lay.

That seemed... too _nice_ for Professor Quirrell...

A dark-haired witch rolled her eyes. "This one won't stay dead either, then." Her accent was ever-so-slightly unusual, not quite identifiable. She looked young, but she had a sort of air of age that felt like some kind of magic...

"You Riddles are like bloody cockroaches," muttered the blonde, fingering her wand. "Any idea how they're managing it, B?"

"B" shrugged.

Horror was slowly dawning in Harry.

_What am I seeing?_

Two powerful Dark witches, young-looking but old-seeming, who showed up immediately after Professor Quirrell stole the Philosopher's Stone...

"Of course, one does not survive six centuries without acquiring at least a little cunning..."

Harry looked over to Sirius Black, who was kneeling down, holding onto his wand in one hand and his head in the other.

Harry wasn't convinced that even Professor Quirrell could defeat Baba Yaga and Perenelle Flamel together.

**OoOoO**

Quirrell whirled in midair, past a barrage of magic, firing Killing Curses mixed with spells Harry couldn't recognise in a constant stream. Quirrell's hidden workshop was already blasted to pieces, the wooden walls incinerated or in some cases somehow _melted_, looking more like old candle wax than wood. The moonlight glowed faintly over the battleground.

Killing Curses flashed against Quirrell time and again, but he paid no mind. _The Patronus_, Harry realised with a jolt. Professor Quirrell had been holding the Stone when Harry had cast his spell. Thinking about it, it was odd that that hadn't triggered the resonance - although _technically_, the spell had been cast at a dead body, and the Stone had rendered it non-magical.

"Expecto Patronum," Harry murmured once more, and the silver figure burst into existence, just in case any stray Killing Curses came towards him or Sirius.

Professor Quirrell jabbed his wand into the sky like a sword, and suddenly all of reality seemed to focus on one point of baleful blue at the end of his wand.

There was a deep, resounding note, and then the two witches' shields splintered and they were blown backwards onto the grass.

Harry was forcibly reminded once more just how _un__balanced_ the power ladder was. _How does_ _magical power even work?_

The blonde - Perenelle, presumably - rolled out of the way of a Killing Curse and loosed a jet of pitch blackness at Professor Quirrell, who dismissed it with a flick of the hand.

The other witch made a circling motion with her staff, and Harry's limbs felt suddenly heavy.

Quirrell plunged out of the sky, but then he seemed to fall _faster_ than gravity would have pulled him, and he slammed into the ground.

The earth burst up around the Defence Professor, throwing Harry off his feet so hard that a Muggle would have broken bones. The altar alone remained entirely undisturbed, but the ground shuddered and creaked as far around as Harry could see.

_Now he's just showing off, _muttered Harry's Inner Critic (which had decided that other Tom Riddle copies were fair game).

The earthquake had caught the two witches off-guard, and Quirrell shot back up into the sky and kept up his pattern of Killing Curses, simultaneously loosing other magic that seemed beyond even them.

The Killing Curse, Professor Quirrell had once told Harry, was amongst the most useful spells in existence, but not the be-all and end-all of duelling. It was invariably lethal and unblockable, true, but it was also extremely easy to dodge, being relatively slow-moving and bright green. Additionally, even if one happened to be sufficiently indifferent to cast it repeatedly, it was quite a serious drain on one's magic.

Even despite this, Quirrell's newfound immunity to the Killing Curse and "mysterious" powers of flight seemed to be letting him hold his own against both witches at the same time.

Baba Yaga and Perenelle spoke the same incantation together, reminding Harry uncomfortably of what the Weasley twins had tried against the troll, and Professor Quirrell was forced to raise a white circular ward to block it.

In that brief opening, Baba Yaga touched one finger to her arm and hissed "_Innervate_."

Harry's scar burned.

The world flashed sickly yellow, and Professor Quirrell was flicked sharply through the air, dipping dangerously before managing to stabilise himself.

That was when Harry saw the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.

Professor Quirrell looked frightened.

Harry turned around.

And Harry realised what a _complete idiot_ he'd been. He'd been in the Horcrux system, and hadn't realised what was missing. _Riddles_, the blonde woman had said, and she _hadn't been talking about Harry_...

Hermione Granger was standing, pointing a bone-white wand at Professor Quirrell, smiling widely, her eyes shining, ever-so-faintly, crimson.

The Dark Lord had risen again.


	9. Shut Up And Multiply, Part Two

Professor Quirrell was on the defensive, now. He had held off Baba Yaga and Perenelle before, but even he had his limits.

Riddle was _more powerful_ than he had been before. David Monroe had spent his decade alone in space planning new spells and rituals, consolidating his grasp of power, and now Riddle had somehow surpassed him despite having been conscious and sane for under a minute.

He _really_ should have thought of this.

He'd recognised, of course, that this plan would be absurdly risky.

But "risk" meant very little to David Monroe, what with his Horcruxes and certain other special measures he'd taken.

This had obviously all been set up in advance in some manner. He didn't have time to think who the mastermind might have been.

Possessing Granger probably hadn't been part of the plan, so Riddle must have a backup body... and yes, Baba Yaga had drawn something from a hidden pocket and cast it to the ground, and a too-tall man's form lay still on the ground, glowing faintly blue. Breaking the possession would be pointless.

There was an Anti-Apparition Jinx up now, which he _could_ trivially break if he weren't, in fact, fighting for his life.

Riddle ran beneath him, inhuman speed more than making up for his lack of broomstick bones, and David _barely_ deflected a wave of _wrongness_ that turned space in on itself and sucked the magic out of the air.

Even _Dumbledore_ wasn't this powerful.

And he made the obvious connection. Riddle had _somehow_ gone to the Flamels and arranged this, and the price he'd asked for, in exchange for retrieving their Stone, was all their hoarded lore...

David's wand was almost knocked out of his hand by the next wave of magic. He was tiring, _fast_.

Harry was under his Cloak, and if he had something up his sleeve, it wasn't helping David now.

He had no allies yet living who could meaningfully aid him.

Harry was wearing the True Cloak of Invisibility. He had broomsticks and emergency Portkeys. If all else failed, he was connected to the Horcruxes. The boy could look after himself.

Winning this battle was not on the table, but he'd planned for this eventuality, just in case, because there _was_ no "too paranoid" when it came to Voldemort. He might be able to defeat the Dark Lord, if it came to a Second Wizarding War, so long as he still held the Philosopher's Stone.

_Lose_.

Without warning, David shot up into the sky like a bullet from a gun, weaving airtight shields around himself, inclining to the side and out of the range of the Jinx, and finally vanished with a soft _pop_ of Apparition.

**OoOoO**

_The Dark Lord has returned. Professor Quirrell cannot stop him. He will take the Philosopher's Stone and tear apart everything you know. He has Hermione's body and the magic of a troll and unicorn. He has over a hundred Horcruxes._

_Solve_.

... Harry couldn't think of anything Professor Quirrell wouldn't already have thought of.

_What can I do that he can't? What can I do that he _wouldn't_?_

_Tom Riddle has a severe known bias: systematically failing to properly consider other people._

Harry looked at his Patronus.

He closed his eyes and willed it to listen to him: _go to Professor Dumbledore and tell him this: the Dark Lord has returned. Come quickly, with help_.

The Patronus vanished.

Sirius seemed to have fallen to magical exhaustion, and Quirrell was fighting alone.

Harry looked up and saw Professor Quirrell fly high, high into the sky and Disapparate, and his stomach sank. _No, no, no..._

Albus Dumbledore burned into existence in all the fury of his wizardry, Snape, McGonagall, Bones and Moody about him.

And the Dark Lord turned and _blasted_ him with a curse that broke Dumbledore's rapid counterspell with a mighty crack, and Dumbledore stumbled back with his face showing raw shock.

_THINK!_ Harry screamed at his brain. Quirrell had taken the Stone and fled, but if Harry left now, he would leave four people to die - and maybe Dumbledore too, if Voldemort and Baba Yaga and Perenelle combined could overcome the wielder of the Elder Wand.

The Order of the Phoenix fanned out, setting themselves behind Dumbledore, raising their wands.

The Dark Lord held his wand casually in Hermione's hand, smirking.

"It was foolish of you to come here tonight, _Albus_," said Tom Riddle with Hermione Granger's voice, in an entirely uncaring tone that Hermione herself had never once used.

Dumbledore might have been mistaken for a statue.

Hermione's lips curled into a smile, and Voldemort gestured to the two at his side. "Your friends the _Flamels_ were _very_ forthcoming with their secrets, you know."

Dumbledore did break, then, and his gaze flicked between Baba Yaga and Perenelle with a terrible comprehension, and the Dark Lord laughed.

Harry was reminded horribly of the feeling when _he'd_ finally put two and two together and guessed that Professor Quirrell was Lord Voldemort.

"Nihil supernum," said Dumbledore, and nothing more.

**OoOoO**

Minerva stood beneath the moonlight, keeping steady control over her breathing.

Riddle did have a flair for the dramatic - _unless that's another mask_ \- but that wasn't the only reason for this delay.

Most offensive magic made some sort of sign, some sound or light or tangible sense of magic that _might_ actually be significant in a duel this close. There might be other subtleties to consider, with the sort of Interdicted magic Albus used.

It seemed hopeless. Minerva didn't understand what was happening, but if the Flamels had joined Voldemort she doubted even Albus could triumph.

_I see you still look to others to save you._

David Monroe had said those words to her, and after the useless indignation had faded, she'd mulled them over.

_What can _I_ do, personally, to make a difference?_

_Transfiguration_, came the obvious answer.

Minerva hesitated. Using Transfiguration in combat was, was...

Was significantly less dangerous than letting Lord Voldemort live.

She couldn't match Albus in skill, but perhaps there was something even he wouldn't think of...

She could not afford - no, the entire _world_ could not afford for her to be squeamish.

She looked hard at the enemy, and tried to think like Harry Potter, look for some Hufflepuff bones to sharpen.

Voldemort was shielded already, naturally, nothing outside the shield. That wouldn't stop anything Dumbledore cast, but it would slow down lesser magic and mundane forces. Albus Dumbledore was no pureblood supremacist - he had heard of such things as sniper rifles, and Voldemort had adapted accordingly.

The Flamels, then. Albus had told her they were not accustomed to interference, knowledgeable but lacking the insight that was essential for a powerful wizard or witch to make best use of eldritch lore. They were certainly not used to combat, if Albus had ever known them truly.

And that was no lie. Perenelle Flamel was fidgeting ever-so-slightly, hadn't even removed her cloak yet, the sweeping fabric trailing far away from her.

She was powerful and deadly. But she was _not_ a Battle Mage.

Minerva considered the form and substance of Perenelle's cloak, the interwoven cloth fibres that composed it.

She could theoretically take one of those threads and pull it out.

One couldn't Transfigure part of an object - at least, she couldn't - but one could Transfigure an object that so happened to be touching another.

Like, say, one of the threads of a cloak.

Minerva extended her magic, steadily, subtly, whilst Voldemort taunted Dumbledore.

The Dark Lord would certainly notice such an... _unusual_ attack, sense the trace of magic. But a witch who hadn't duelled in half a millennium?

The time taken to Transfigure something into a target is a function of its volume and that of the target form.

Minerva Transfigured a thread of the cloak into a loop of razor wire.

_Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line_...

And Minerva Transfigured the loop into another, identical one, one hundredth of an inch across.

_(black robes, falling)_

_Blood spills out in litres_

Minerva cried _Finite_ and ended the magic, even as Dumbledore and Voldemort clashed together in a burst of red and green light, and somewhere in the background a too-adult child's voice incanted _Frigideiro_, and Baba Yaga bellowed and turned her staff on Minerva McGonagall.

Harry had seen the blonde witch fall, and only hesitated the barest fraction of a second before casting the Cooling Charm.

Killing Curses streamed from Baba Yaga's staff towards Professor McGonagall, but they burst into nothingness against Harry's Patronus.

Dumbledore's wand was a blur of grey, and he was flying low over the ground, held up by Fawkes. He was throwing everything he had at the Dark Lord, but he was too busy trying to shield the others from Voldemort, Harry could see.

Moody was already stumbling, and Bones didn't look much better.

Voldemort gestured, and a burst of balls of fire hissed at all four Order members. Dumbledore evoked a wall of purple light that sustained the impacts, but was sent staggering away by the bolt of sickly yellow that drilled through it. Dumbledore began to say something, but the infant spell shattered under a beam from Voldemort's wand.

Baba Yaga was holding off all four of Dumbledore's allies together. Battlefield control, Professor Quirrell had once said, was a Battle Magic speciality, and Voldemort exemplified it.

_What deadly powers can I access? What force multiplier can I use?_

Voldemort didn't have his broomstick bones. If he didn't have the Order to protect, the mobility afforded to Dumbledore by Fawkes could help... but it probably wasn't _enough_...

...And if the Order left, Voldemort and Baba Yaga could both concentrate force on Dumbledore. _Defeated in detail._

Harry had recognised its dark side for what it was, and he was employing every last instinct of Riddle's to find some weapon to bring to bear on his progenitor.

With Voldemort's aid, Baba Yaga had cut off Snape and McGonagall from Bones and Moody.

Harry realised with a jolt of panic what was going to happen an instant before it did.

A curse from Baba Yaga winged towards Professor McGonagall, passed cleanly through Harry's Patronus.

Snape was already there in front of her, a Shield Charm on his lips.

And Voldemort leapt up, five metres or more, over Dumbledore's head, and ripped away Snape's shielding.

The Potions Master made no noise as he fell, a hole punched cleanly through his chest.

Harry raised his wand and formed once more the words of the Cooling Charm-

And Voldemort blasted Snape's body to ash and dust, because as far as Albus Dumbledore knew, a dead body wasn't worth worrying about.

**OoOoO**

It should have had more gravity, that moment. Severus Snape was dark and brooding, complicated and mysterious. He wasn't supposed to just _die_ like that. It just wasn't appropriate. His death, if it happened at all, should be poignant and dramatic. He should have leapt in front of Professor McGonagall and pushed her to safety, not sort of awkwardly ended up in the path of the curse meant for her.

He should have looked finally at peace in death, maybe whispered Lily Evans' name one last time, not collapsed in an undignified heap and then been cremated by Voldemort.

The Dark Lord was not stupid. He had seen what Harry had done when Perenelle died, and spared a curse to stop Harry from playing the party Cleric.

Harry could see it all unfolding. Perhaps the Order could still flee, but he didn't see how. Even if they could, Voldemort wasn't playing games any more. _Magical Britain might not have hours this time, let alone years._

Harry had never known Snape well, but he had given his life and his happiness in service against Voldemort, stood for decades against the darkness, for all his flaws.

_Intent to kill._

In the cold light of Tom Riddle's dark intelligence, the battlefield faded into a series of possible weapons, the emotional shock of Snape's death muted.

_What is unusual about this place? What won't he anticipate? What can kill Lord Voldemort?_

Professor Quirrell's voice in his head replied:_ some sort of truly greater, insurmountable magical effect, such that the world would be forever without the Dark Lord..._

_What is lost to Dark Rituals cannot be regained._

Harry Potter froze in horror.

Why, yes, yes there was something here that could kill the Dark Lord.

The Dark Lord who was _in Hermione Granger's body._

_Please, no..._

_Overruled_, spoke the voice in his mind of... of Albus Dumbledore and Professor Quirrell and Mad-Eye Moody and Draco Malfoy and Slytherin and Gryffindor and Ravenclaw and even Hufflepuff and Hermione Granger herself.

But they _weren't_ voices in his mind, they were all just him, just different ways he could think, and there was just... simply no way that Harry could think that gave him a different answer.

Harry reached down and touched his wand to the sacrificial circle Quirrell had drawn. The Philosopher's Stone had left it not just permanent but _nonmagical_. Breaking the shape of the circle wouldn't break the magic, because there _was_ no magic.

He was empty and sick and he thought he might be crying, but he wasn't trembling, and his mind was still clear.

Hermione had been his best friend from the very beginning. His _first_ friend, in fact. He had gone to extreme lengths to protect her. He had looked at Lucius Malfoy and the Dementors of Azkaban and Death itself, and refused to let any of them touch Hermione Granger.

But he was _not_ the only person who felt like that about someone else. How many people would die, if it came to a Second Wizarding War? How many would feel exactly how Harry had?

_That's not an apt comparison_, protested some final part of him, weakly. _Those people might still be retrievable, they aren't going to be SACRIFICED TO DARK RITUALS-_

_Shut up and multiply._

Harry Potter knelt beneath the moonlight, tears streaming down his face, and began to Transfigure the sacrificial circle around Hermione Granger.

**OoOoO**

**Author's Note: If you have any ideas for how Harry could get Hermione out of this, I would very much like to hear them.**


	10. Shut Up And Multiply, Final

_Harry Potter knelt beneath the moonlight, tears streaming down his face, and began to Transfigure the sacrificial circle around Hermione Granger._

And that was when Harry realised he was being _silly_.

The note, after all, had told him to go back in time five hours, not six.

Voldemort was a blur of colour, and the Order had fallen in on itself, Dumbledore doing his best to shield the rest from Voldemort whilst they held off Baba Yaga, but it was _not_ tenable. One misstep could kill all of them. If Harry failed...

_What would I do if I were Lord Voldemort?_

If for some reason he had to abandon Hermione's body, he wouldn't just fly away and leave Baba Yaga to her fate. One doesn't become a Dark Lord by throwing away powerful allies, not when one is fighting David Monroe. No, Voldemort would simply possess the Transfigured backup body and keep right on fighting. He had nothing to lose.

_Am I sure of that?_

Even if there was only a tiny chance that Voldemort would flee...

Harry looked down at his watch, noted the time.

A scrap of parchment appeared, reading simply, "YES".

Harry grinned fiercely. A wave of powerful relief swept over him that none of the Order had thought to destroy Voldemort's backup body. They probably just assumed it was another of Voldemort's victims.

_Next problem: how do I get Voldemort out of Hermione?_

Harry couldn't hope to get close to Voldemort. He'd be cursed to pieces before he got within five metres. He doubted he could hit Voldemort with a spell, when he was moving that quickly.

So, Harry had to hurt Hermione enough to exorcise Voldemort, but not enough to kill her...

Harry reached into his pouch and signed three letters with his fingers.

Unfortunately, Harry had learned, a handgun was _not_ the ultimate wizard-killing weapon. Of course, a bullet moved faster than most spells, but it was only in films that gunshot wounds killed human beings instantly - and wizards were significantly tougher than Muggles. Barring a very lucky shot to the brain, a wizard of Voldemort's calibre could trivially heal any wound most weapons could inflict. This, of course, was assuming that your enemy didn't enchant some item of clothing with a Shield Charm as an obvious precaution. And, for that matter, that they weren't a troll-cum-unicorn moving faster than you could see.

Harry felt a sense of doom around Professor Quirrell, a legacy of the Riddle-imprint that made Quirrell almost count as Voldemort. That was as _nothing_ to the sense of pure horror, the physical pain in his scar, around the true Lord Voldemort.

Harry was fairly sure that the resonance would be stronger, too.

Harry's lips curled into a tight smile.

Harry had one hour remaining on his Time-Turner - more than enough to cast his Patronus, enlist Professor Quirrell's help.

And so Harry reached into his pouch and withdrew the gun Fred and George had _acquired_ for him, loaded with a bullet carrying a simple Tracking Charm, made permanent by the Stone, the gift of his future self.

Some time in the future, Harry would Transfigure the surface of the tracking bullet into itself.

Harry closed his eyes, allowed himself a fraction of a second to take a deep breath-

Harry aimed roughly at Hermione and fired.

The Transfigured metal and Voldemort's shields shorted each other out. The bullet carried on inexorably, and lodged itself in Hermione's chest.

Two Tom Riddles screamed horribly, and then Hermione's body collapsed in magical flames.

**OoOoO**

_She'll be _fine,_ that troll could regenerate from losing half its skull._

There was no time to think, no time to notice what the Order were doing; Harry sprinted towards Voldemort's corpse, raising his wand-

Quirrell had explained the ritual to sacrifice a magical creature enough that Merlin's Interdict had allowed Harry to hear the incantation, _thuo tei dunamei_.

Harry had guessed that the majority component of Quirrell's animal-sacrifice ritual was the circle - there'd been no corresponding flare of doom when Quirrell had said the incantation, so it was probably not a major magical effect.

The sacrificial circle was Transfigured around Voldemort's new body in a hair-thin line.

_Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver_

Harry fixed his wand on Voldemort, began the chant.

Harry's scar began to burn as Voldemort's spirit returned.

Lord Voldemort would certainly have time to shield himself from any curse. Dumbledore would not be able to kill him while he was down - it might cost him a great deal of strength, but even wandlessly Voldemort could sense and deflect any spell from where he lay.

But for all his power - for all his ancient lore and wandless magic - Voldemort was still a human being. A disoriented human being, used to a unicorn's speed. Even if he'd known what Harry was doing...

There was one brief moment when Tom Marvolo Riddle, terror of all Britain, the most powerful wizard the world had seen in centuries, the Dark Lord Voldemort, was nothing more than a magical animal, a specimen of _Homo sapiens_ with a chunk of marker DNA.

"_Thuo tei dunamei!"_

Harry pointed his wand at the form on the ground, then slashed it at himself.

Riddle's inhuman face was a mask of terror and fury.

Harry knew _exactly_ how the Dark Lord felt. It was exactly how the imprint of Tom Riddle had reacted in Azkaban, the weakness to Dementors, the all-consuming desperate horror of non-existence.

There was one horrible moment in which a Tom Riddle knew that he was about to die.

...And that therefore he had no reason to avoid the magical resonance.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Harry didn't have time to scream.

Something soft but _very_ fast slammed into him from the side, throwing him clear, and the Killing Curse splashed uselessly against the Sunshine General, pale and shaken but very definitively alive.

And then Voldemort began to wither, flakes of skin cracking and crumbling away, and he turned to dust and nothingness.

_I'm sorry_, thought Harry. He knew it was wrong, knew it was _stupid_, knew that Voldemort had caused untold pain and suffering, but...

Harry had destroyed _all_ but a remnant of the Dark Lord.

Harry's vision darkened as his mind was assaulted with more than he could possibly process all at once, all Voldemort's Interdicted lore, his magical abilities.

He would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that that was another benefit of the plan.

_Later. Deal with it later._

Baba Yaga spat one final curse, threw up a pulsing white barrier, and fled.

Harry reached wearily up to his neck and spun the Time-Turner once.


	11. Shut Up And Multiply, Aftermaths

Tick. Whistle. Hiss. Hum. Pop.

Harry sat in Professor Dumbledore's office, feeling more... _blank_ than anything.

_Now what?_

He felt as though he'd run out of road, like the world had come to a sudden jolting stop and he hadn't. _Quest complete._

Harry closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

_What do I need to do now?_

It felt strange, sitting here while the world bustled happily on. Voldemort was gone, unmade forever. Severus Snape had fallen in battle - Harry felt a rush of sadness at that - but he knew that that was an amazingly low price to pay, to prevent another Wizarding War.

_Forget the future, what are my immediate priorities?_

Harry was still trying to sort through his final inheritance from Voldemort. He needed to research how magical power worked at some point. So far, he felt _bigger_ in some undefinable way. He was fairly sure that that was the feeling of the large "pool" of magical power he'd inherited from Voldemort, but cursory experiments (he'd tried snapping his fingers to conjure a banana again) hadn't worked.

Hermione had been taken to St. Mungo's. They would find nothing wrong with her - only Fiendfyre could hurt her now, with her unicorn blood and troll healing and a Patronus burning bright inside her.

Perenelle Flamel was in his pouch, cold and Transfigured into a diamond. For all that she had more blood on her hands than Voldemort ever had, Harry couldn't in good conscience let her die. It would also be useful to see if she knew anything interesting.

Of course, that would require the Philosopher's Stone, which left another problem.

Professor Quirrell, Harry reminded himself again, was not a good person.

Harry had been _incredibly_ irrational when it came to Professor Quirrell. Looking back, he could apply terms like "motivated cognition" and "Halo Effect", to explain - or _excuse_, if he was going to be harsh - why he hadn't noticed that the _Defence Professor of Hogwarts_ was a sickly, slowly-dying victim possessed by the spirit of a far more powerful Dark wizard, but at the time...

Harry was going to have to be a lot more cautious and a lot more introspective if he wanted to survive, let alone succeed.

He was going to have to look at everyone and see them _clearly_ \- without his own prejudices getting in the way, without Tom Riddle's fatal habit of seeing other people as, well, NPCs.

And he _also_ couldn't afford to idolise people, _especially_ not homicidal Dark wizards.

_Nihil supernum. _

And so Harry sat and considered David Monroe, as he knew him.

Quirrell _was_ sensible... if he valued human life at all, it was not absolutely unreasonably optimistic to suggest that he could be persuaded to surrender the Stone, so long as Harry swore to give him access to it. If not... Quirrell wasn't invulnerable.

As for what Quirrell _wanted_...

Quirrell wanted to live, above all. On one level, that desire was effectively granted by virtue of the Horcruxes, and Harry had no power to threaten it.

That said, Quirrell had been worried that Harry might destroy the world, and all his Horcruxes with it.

Harry took little comfort from the Horcruxes. Even if the measures against things like torture and Obliviation Quirrell had spoken of applied to Harry as well, Harry was sure he could find some way. Harry needed to start taking precautions against ritual sacrifice...

Albus Dumbledore appeared in a flash of fire.

_You will be polite,_ said Hufflepuff. _You will now be sensible. You will not lash out at the most powerful wizard alive just because Tom Riddle didn't like him._

Harry looked carefully at the Headmaster.

Albus Dumbledore had fought a war against an enemy who simply outmatched him, and it had almost broken him. He'd carried on nonetheless, because there was nobody else. He knew better than anyone the hero's burden.

Harry had been a fool not to re-evaluate the Chief Warlock, when it became clear that he was sane. He'd been a fool not to tell him what he knew. Dumbledore was wise, and he was good.

_Nihil supernum_.

And yet, for all that, Dumbledore still thought that death was the next great adventure. He still had decided not to investigate the Philosopher's Stone, probably because that had seemed like something Voldemort might do-

Harry winced as Dumbledore punched cleanly through his Occlumency barriers, flicking quickly through his memories.

The Headmaster raised his hands apologetically. "I am sorry, Harry, but I had to be sure Lord Voldemort had not taken control over you."

_And make sure you got all the Flamels' lore from me,_ Harry thought but did not speak aloud.

Headmaster Dumbledore sat down heavily. He reached over and scratched the top of Fawkes' head.

"Congratulations are in order, naturally. _Well done_, Harry."

Harry shook his head slightly. "I shouldn't have had to do that to anyone. And Professor Snape... I made a promise, when..."

Dumbledore looked gentle, but measuring. "Tell me, Harry. What was going through your mind, when you faced Voldemort? When you saw that he was winning?"

Harry looked down at the desk. _Your anger with Dumbledore is the anger of a dead man. Your reasoning is artificially impaired._

"I needed some way to kill him permanently. It wasn't until after I thought of the ritual that I realised it would kill Hermione as well."

Dumbledore sighed, and all at once he looked like an old man again.

"I do not wish to mar your triumph, Harry, but-"

"I'm not stupid, Headmaster. I-" Harry cut himself off and took a deep breath. "Let me start again."

Harry closed his eyes, composed his thoughts.

"I am sorry, Professor Dumbledore. Some things I've said to you in the past were... unfair. Vindictive. Frankly, cruel. Voldemort _hated_ you, and so..." Harry trailed off. "I did listen to what you said after the trial. I knew about it even before then. I _was_ going to sacrifice Hermione to kill Voldemort, Legilimise me if you don't believe me. I just... thought of something better."

Dumbledore's gaze remained stern. "You did not know. Even with the Time-Turner, you did not know. Your future self might have lied to save Hermione. You still do not comprehend the magnitude of suffering-"

Professor Dumbledore had stood, and turned towards the direction of his Phoenix Price room.

"There was a Plan B."

Dumbledore halted.

"Voldemort's magic couldn't touch mine. The effect was worse for him - it killed him once." Harry smiled grimly. "My Patronus thought is something I can desire to share with anyone, even Voldemort. Plan B was to summon my Patronus and tell it to follow Voldemort. He'd never be able to return properly again, and we'd be able to track him down and sacrifice him if he ever tried."

Professor Dumbledore was staring at him.

"You... _weaponised_ the Patronus Charm."

"I'm not a psychopath, I'm just very creative."

Dumbledore sat down in his chair even more heavily.

"Ah," said Harry, "that reminds me, actually. Now is probably the time to tell you what the Philosopher's Stone actually does."

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "Master Flamel only ever hinted. I thought it unwise to pry..."

Harry suppressed another flash of irritation. _Prying into secret magic gets you killed. Dumbledore had no reason to think "Flamel" was lying._

"The Elixir of Life is a myth. The Stone makes magic permanent. And it can heal people, heal damage modern magic can't, things like... well, like Cruciatus damage."

Dumbledore flinched. "He lied, for all those years... kept it away from the world..."

"I don't suppose," Harry said, not wanting the Headmaster to lapse into more regret, "you have any idea why one object would make magic permanent _and_ cure brain damage?"

Harry wasn't even sure that that reasoning was valid at all. He lived, after all, in a world of magic. For the first time, the terrifying thought was starting to occur to him that maybe the world just _didn't_ ultimately make sense.

"As I said, I know very little of the Stone, Harry. I have, however, just now been trying to rectify that gap in my knowledge." That explained where Dumbledore had been.

"There are references, scattered ones, to the _Stone of Alethiontology_, the Stone of True Being. I had thought it mere legend, but it seems likely that the Stone in fact has only one effect: to render any substance, magic or indeed person the _true_ thing. How that is determined, I cannot say; still less, how it is brought about. All I will say is that it is at least the second most powerful artefact I have ever heard of."

"Yes. And now Professor Quirrell has it."

"I suppose it would be optimism to the point of foolishness to expect that he would hand it over."

Harry shrugged. "It won't be easy, but if it comes down to it, we might be able to seize it from him. And... _maybe_, if he could be persuaded that it made me less likely to destroy the world..."

Dumbledore looked at Harry oddly, then.

The old wizard leant back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

"Harry, it seems you already know something of your... situation. There is something I must show you."

**OoOoO**

Harry beheld a long stone hall, stacked with shelves, feeling faintly unsettled.

Upon the shelves rested small white orbs, shining eerily in Dumbledore's wandlight. Some of the orbs were polished and gleaming, but others lay beneath the dust of centuries. Somehow, though, they all seemed to belong equally, and there was no trace of any human hand disturbing those shelves to place the orbs.

There was a blurring effect around the orbs and a sort of pressure in his ears that Harry didn't think was part of the magic of the place.

The place was of a magnitude Harry would never have expected. The rows of shelves stretched into the distance - Harry guessed there were at least a hundred.

That seemed unusual, really. _How many wizards in Britain - no, let's assume it's the whole world, so a million. We don't know how rare Seers are, but people seem to accept it as plausible that there'd be one or maybe even two in Hogwarts, so say one in a thousand. Seers never make many prophecies in a lifetime..._

This place must have been _ancient_.

"This," intoned Dumbledore, "is the Hall of Prophecy, Merlin's gift."

Dumbledore withdrew from his robes the device of the Chief Warlock, the Line of Merlin.

"When our war against the Dark Lord was failing, for all my magic, despite all the Order's efforts, I came to this place and did what no other had done in recorded history. I invoked an old password and listened to every prophecy recorded here. I learned that Voldemort was the least of my worries."

Dumbledore gestured expansively. "This Hall is perhaps Merlin's greatest feat. There are hundreds of thousands of prophecies recorded here, from all over the world. Many of them are connected, and many of them are already averted. I have not listened to all of them, but all those I have heard point ultimately to one thing."

Dumbledore placed a withered hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry realised he was holding his breath, and released it.

"This world is ending, Harry. Again and again, prophecies foretold the end of all life. Whenever I heard one such prophecy, I terminated its line of possibility. Whole shelves of prophecies I averted, whole lines of foretold tragedy I circumscribed, with a well-placed word or spell."

Professor Dumbledore's gaze was fixed on Harry. "And then came your prophecy, Harry. By rights, I should have ended your possibility, prevented you from ever being born. You _will_ end this world, Harry. That much is inevitable. Whether that means merely life as we know it, or this planet, or all existence, I do not know."

_Quirrell was right._ "Then... what..." Harry trailed off. If he was going to end the world - _why_ hadn't Dumbledore killed him-

Dumbledore smiled, and there was a gleam of something like triumph in those sapphire eyes. "In your case, your case alone, there is the slightest of loopholes. You, Harry, shall end _the world,_ not _life_. I do not know how you could do it, but you have ever been blessed with more imagination than I. You may yet rescue this world's peoples, though their home may be doomed."

_Well._

_I suppose it could be _worse_. We still have Dumbledore and Professor Quirrell and Hermione..._

Harry suppressed a shudder. Something didn't feel _right_ about this whole situation - which he supposed was fitting.

Dumbledore shook his head, as though to clear it. "And that is what I have dedicated my life to. That has been the ulterior motive behind... oh, at least nine parts in ten of my apparent madness. At the bidding of prophecy, I crept into your bedroom while you slept and administered the Sleep-Cycle Potion. I gave your mother Lily the means to help your mother Petunia, ensuring you would grow up surrounded by science. I used the Ventriloquism Charm to tell you to look for Hermione. When you were very young I cast a Reductor Curse at the rock on your windowsill, and to this day I still do not understand why."

"You killed my pet rock!"

Harry had found his voice at last, and that was what he'd blurted out.

Dumbledore chuckled.

Harry cleared his throat, ears burning slightly. "Can I hear these prophecies?"

"No. They are very clear that you must never hear them. I have heard all the recent prophecies that have not been already averted, Harry. They are of no further use, that much is clear. To that end..."

Dumbledore raised his wand and cast a spell Harry now recognised as Enai's Greater Destruction.

Thousands upon thousands of glass orbs shattered, the legacy of Merlin lying in fragments upon the floor.

A mass of ghostly Seers arose, and for a brief moment the innumerable voices sounded like the roar of a jet engine even through the Charm on Harry's ears.

Then Dumbledore flicked his wand, and the images and glass fragments vanished.

The Chief Warlock raised the Line of Merlin Unbroken and touched it to the wall. There was no visible ceremony, no bangs or flashes or puffs of smoke, just a quiet sort of dying feeling as though someone had suddenly unplugged a television that had been on, unnoticed, in the background.

"And so we face the future unknowing, as it was before Merlin."

The two wizards burned out of existence, leaving only the silent shell of the Hall of Prophecy.

**OoOoO**

Professor Quirrell appeared in the dark street without a sound, and drifted into a slightly run-down cottage.

Inside lived amongst the most esteemed of magical historians, but she was old, withdrawn. She was into her third century, ancient even for a witch, and slowly dying. The Healers' arts were failing them more and more as Merlin's folly eroded wizardkind, and nobody still living could coax such damage to heal. Still, her magic was with her, and she refused all offers of help.

The Death Eaters were long since disbanded, and they had never been suited for such work as this. David was no fool. Riddle's little habit of underestimating other people had killed him, and it was time and past time for David to learn from his mistakes.

If he was going to save the world, it might be nice to have help. Prophecy was far from understood, but the best place to start might be here.

Nobody would be suspicious about the "death", not with a perfectly realistic corpse courtesy of the Stone.

"_Somnium, Legilimens_," Quirrell said to the sleeping form, extracting all the fragments of old lore, all the knowledge of influential people that the great historian had ever accumulated.

It was the work of a second, to sweep his wand over the sleeping woman and fix the Transfiguration with the Stone.

"_Innervate_".

The woman sat up in bed, gasping, and it took her a moment to realise that she wasn't in any pain.

"Good evening, Ms. Bagshot," came a cool, precise voice. "I have a proposition for you."

**OoOoO**

There was quiet, for a time, back in Dumbledore's office, save for the constant noise of the artefacts in the background.

"I'm sorry," Harry eventually said again. "All this time, Professor, _you_ were the sane one... the only one doing the right things for the right reasons..."

Dumbledore shrugged lightly. "I long since ceased to care what others thought of me. Life has far fewer headaches that way."

He grew serious again - sombre, even. "Harry, in truth, I did not expect to survive Voldemort's downfall. I did not expect you to deliver us another miracle, to end Voldemort so soon. I am gambling literally everything on you, now. This is, as I'm sure you need no convincing, of quite literally the utmost importance."

Dumbledore reached into his robes for the Line, and passed it unceremoniously to Harry, without hesitation.

"Merlin's legacy is yours. Do not uphold it. Surpass it. That is your burden, Harry. I give you everything I have - the Line, leadership of the Order, all such resources as I can command. I will gladly share any fragment of lore you require. If you can find some way to overpower me somehow - preferably without killing me, if you wouldn't mind - to take the Elder Wand, do so. Your survival is _imperative_."

Harry took the Line.

Nothing visible happened. Merlin had not shared the Peverell's more ostentatious excesses.

The Line did not grant its wielder any secret magical powers. It simply granted them control over the Wizengamot, and let them monitor the Department of Mysteries, and opened certain _very_ interesting vaults...

It didn't allow the Chief Warlock to break the Interdict, not even with the world at stake. Merlin had planned millennia in advance, and the Line could not tell what its wielder would be inclined to do.

"Merlin, you idiot..." Harry muttered.

"Come again?" asked Dumbledore, one eyebrow raised.

"The Interdict. It stopped people from ending the world with dangerous magic, but it didn't have any measures built in in case people _needed _powerful magic to prevent some _other_ threat."

"What would you have done instead?"

"Used the Mirror," Harry replied promptly. "It shows your _coherent extrapolated volition_. If I'd made it, the Interdict would censor powerful magic _unless_ you stood in front of the Mirror and it showed you not ending the world."

"Alas," said Dumbledore. "Even Merlin did not consider everything." He steepled his fingers. "I cannot, at present, conceive of any means of lifting the Interdict, but that does not mean it is impossible."

Harry yawned, the events of the day finally catching up with him.

"I doubt you will have time to lead the Wizengamot, and frankly it is a bureaucratic nightmare I would not wish upon Voldemort himself. I suggest you appoint me as regent."

Harry nodded wordlessly, and returned the Line of Merlin..

Dumbledore seemed to understand. "My office is open to you, Harry. Come at any time. There is more I must discuss with you, but it can wait. Sleep well."

Harry stumbled from the office.

**OoOoO**

An infinitesimal fragment of ruby positively glittered with enchantment beneath the microscope. With the slightest spell, it adhered seamlessly to the Philosopher's Stone, and its magic became true.

**OoOoO**

David appeared before a quarantine room of St. Mungo's hospital. Hermione Granger slept within, next to a box of rats and flies.

Knockturn Alley was home to many who would not be missed. One such individual lay now in an enchanted sleep, floating eerily.

This was absolutely necessary, as even those called good would agree.

What could charitably be called a life ended in a flash of green.

The Dark wizard stood, murmuring the spell of the Greater Horcrux over Hermione Granger.

After a time, a small item disappeared into his robes, and Quirrell and his victim vanished as though they had never been.

There was a resigned sadness across the nation the next morning, when it was found that Bathilda Bagshot had died peacefully in bed.

Nobody noticed the disappearance of another nameless petty criminal.


	12. Endings and Beginnings

Early the next morning, Harry sat in the privacy of his trunk, and thought.

_To-do list:_

_1\. Save every sapient being in the universe._

_2\. Resurrect all dead sapient beings in the universe._

He had _wanted_ a challenge. He had _wanted_ to be significant. He had no real right to complain.

_Right. What do I have to get done right now?_

Dumbledore had wanted to discuss more with him, if he had nothing better to do.

_List of things to ask Dumbledore:_

_1\. How are spells _really_ made?_

_2\. How does magical power work? Why aren't I as powerful as Voldemort was?_

_3\. Where does magic come from?_

He needed to contact Professor Quirrell, as soon as possible. They _needed_ the Stone. Harry reached for his wand-

"Hello again, Mr. Potter."

Harry spun around, almost falling off his chair.

Professor Quirrell was not leaning against a wall, as had once been his custom: he was standing solidly, and there seemed to be more to him than there had been before - like he was more real, somehow.

The sense of doom was gone, the prophecy fulfilled.

"That was quick," Harry said, recovering. "And most people would have knocked."

_Idiot_, Harry chastised himself. He'd _just_ resolved to be more sensible, and he hadn't taken any precautions against, say, Professor Quirrell deciding it might be a good idea to kill the prophesied end of the world.

It wouldn't be _easy_ for Professor Quirrell to kill Harry. Harry's fingers rested casually on his wand. Quirrell might try something to circumvent the Horcrux system, but if he did, Harry would Transfigure enough antimatter inside his own skull to kill himself instantly (he'd calculated the amount required long ago, of course. Be prepared.)

The fact that Harry was still there was evidence enough that Quirrell didn't want him dead, but just to be safe...

"_Musst ssay ssomething cruccial_," hissed Harry as quickly as he could. "_Iss prophesssied for me to desstroy world, yess, but world iss inevitably doomed - alternative iss end of all life. Am only chancce to resscue people of world before all thingss end."_

"I see," said Quirrell after a moment's pause. His wand hand gestured rapidly as he spoke, casting as many privacy spells as could be evoked within the castle Hogwarts.

"_Am told original wordss of prophecccy, from one who heard it, can be helpful. Parsseltongue will not count, I think_." Professor Quirrell cleared his throat. "He is here. The one who will tear apart the very stars in Heaven. He is here. He is the end of the world."

Harry shivered. There was nothing particular about the words themselves, but inside the calm, precise tones of that voice was a kind of elemental force.

"_Now, how do you plan to sset about doing thiss?_"

"_Wass told yessterday._"

"_No excusse."_

"_Had jusst ssslain Dark Lord._"

"_Sstill no excusse_".

Harry gave the closest Parseltongue could come to a long-suffering sigh. "'_End of world' could ssimply refer to thiss..._" Parseltongue _had_ a word for "planet", but something told Harry that Salazar Slytherin had meant the little moving points of light in the sky, not what he'd been standing on... "_planet, sso minimum neccesssary iss desstruction of two sstarss and one planet... could find ssome meanss of adapting great creation, presserving all thinking creaturess..._"

"This," said Professor Quirrell slowly, in human speech, and the troubling thought occurred to Harry that the Defence Professor had just as little understanding as he did, "is challenging enough to be interesting."

"_More knowledge neccesssary. Can you concceive, teacher, of ssome meanss of lifting interdict of anccient-wizard-chief?_"

Professor Quirrell looked almost horrified. "_Wass raissed for good reasson-"_

"_Am not ssstupid. Sshould be possible to usse knowledge sso gained to casst interdict once more, and better thiss time. If not, think acceptable rissk, to ssave world. Are there any known librariess, hoardss of ssecretss ssurviving but hidden by interdict?"_

"The Twilit Archives," murmured Quirrell in human speech, "and perhaps a few more."

Harry smiled. _Now we're getting somewhere_.

"_Sso. Breaking the Interdict?_"

**OoOoO**

Albus Dumbledore was not all that elderly, as it happened. For all his years, both the natural and the Time-Turned, he was still a wizard. His body consisted under its own magic; he had access to such things as Healing Charms, should the need arise. In physical terms, he was in no worse condition than a middle-aged Muggle.

But it was times like this when he _felt_ so, so old.

His feet pushed away the dark stone steps.

"_Lumos_," he murmured. It wasn't necessary. He could have lit that room without speaking a word, without touching a wand, but he had always taken some comfort from executing the precise techniques of spellcasting.

A small statue of Hermione Granger, wand raised and eyes set in her camouflage practice uniform, occupied the centre of the room. In its hand was her wand, almost unique amongst the wands in this room in that it was intact.

Hermione held a special position in this room, not because she had been closer or greater than any other, not because she had been young or innocent, but because she had been his _student_. Her parents had been promised that she would be safe at Hogwarts...

He'd come here on that awful day and wondered briefly if it might be the right thing to do to surrender Hogwarts. He had joined the ranks of those Headmasters under whom a pupil had died.

But that was no help to anyone, and so Albus had spoken to Hogwarts and raised this as a tribute to yet another he'd failed to save, made all the worse for the fact that she had been a first-year of Hogwarts, and a hero if ever there had been one.

Albus reached up and took Hermione's wand, and with a small gesture the statue receded back into the stone floor.

Albus shook himself slightly. The Ravenclaw within him had burned to ask Harry what had happened, _how_ Hermione had survived after all, but the boy had been through enough.

No, Albus was here to celebrate another, one who would be missed by far fewer than had mourned Hermione, even after most of the country had been convinced she was a murderer.

Severus would not have wanted special recognition. The man had been convinced that the life he was risking was no life at all.

There were things Albus could have said, to help Severus, to free him. But there were other dangers in that. The Potions Master might not have been strong enough to understand, could have ended up broken even more. Looking around the room he was in, Albus knew quite well that he would not have freed Severus even if he had been sure.

He would make the announcement at dinner. He would tell the students the truth. They deserved that much. Severus deserved that much.

On a small black pedestal stood a framed photograph of a young Severus Snape with a rare smile, standing next to a laughing red-haired woman. Just in front of it lay a small urn of ashes, and a cracked and scorched wand.

The door closed soundlessly behind Albus Dumbledore.

**OoOoO**

Harry leant back in his reading chair.

Professor Quirrell didn't know a handy counter-spell to the Interdict of Merlin. There had been attempts to break through it throughout history, but nobody had ever succeeded, and Quirrell couldn't recall anyone trying to lift it completely.

He _did_ hypothesise that the Interdict was tied to the Line of Merlin Unbroken.

Sadly, Professor Quirrell had told Harry, the Line was amongst the greatest artefacts known. There were seven things, Professor Quirrell said, that might endure the passage of time indefinitely, resist any material force, withstand even Fiendfyre: the Mirror, the Hallows, the Hall, the Line, and of course the Philosopher's Stone.

That brought Harry to the next point. "Ah," he said. _Mess this up, and people _keep dying_._ "About the Stone..."

There was a long, calculating look. Harry wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but he thought he saw the man smirk.

_If you value human life, if you care at all about other people, please..._

"Tell me," Quirrell said neutrally, "what would you do first, if I handed you the Stone at this moment?"

_Not have to get Dumbledore and half the Order to steal it from you,_ thought Harry. "Set up a hospital. Portkey people in, Transfigure them, touch them with the Stone. We could punish the worst criminals by having them bind Unbreakable Vows, or use them for security and healing. Begin dismantling the-"

Harry clamped his mouth shut. _Begin dismantling the Statute of Secrecy._

For once, Harry had actually managed to think before speaking.

Harry had used his knowledge of science to his advantage, doing things no other first-year could. But he was far from unique. How many Muggle children had heard of antimatter? How many happened to be friends with a wizard child? What if some _idiot_ science enthusiast who didn't understand how big c^2 was thought it would be _fun_ to get his wizard neighbour to Conjure some neutronium/antineutronium, and the wizard humoured him and cast the spell...

Wizards and witches hid magical lore for the sake of safety, but that wasn't what they ought to worry about.

"Begin healing Muggles in secret. Heal dementia in its early stages, cancer before it's diagnosed. Fake the invention of highly-effective but rare treatments..."

"All very ambitious, yes. But what would you do _now_? The very first change you could make?"

_Oh._

Harry's heart started racing.

A Patronus was not effective against Dementors without its caster close by. But touch it with the Stone...

That wasn't all. The harm could be _reversed_ with the Stone. Harry could make it all as though it had never happened. That woman might remember her children's faces again.

Harry's wand was halfway raised when the Defence Professor shook his head. "Again, you must _continue_ thinking. A phoenix came to you when you wished to destroy Azkaban, and it might yet come to another."

"You mean-"

"You are too valuable to risk on any phoenix's venture. But phoenixes are powerfully magical. It is not inconceivable that there is something you and she might learn, students both of Muggle arts, from a phoenix. Dumbledore will not gladly surrender Fawkes."

Quirrell's tone sharpened. "He may mean well, but Dumbledore is still the man who told a young Tom Riddle _not to meddle_ when he went down on his knees and begged to meet Nicholas Flamel."

Harry hesitated only a fraction of a second. He was not going to rush into another of Quirrell's plans without thinking. "It's not worth the risk to Hermione. It's not worth the extra time the prisoners have to suffer. And I'm pretty sure Dumbledore will-"

"Will hesitate and wring his hands and gently dissuade you from trying anything vaguely distasteful, for all that it might save us all. As for Miss Granger, it is only necessary that she _think_ that she is risking her life. Send copies of your Patronus to her after she has left."

After a moment, Harry nodded.

**OoOoO**

Lucius had noticed immediately, that morning.

It had taken him a while to work out just what that feeling was.

The Dark Mark had left his arm and his mind and his magic, leaving smooth and unmarked skin, as though it had never been there at all.

This rather changed things.

**OoOoO**

_Later, at dinner:_

The Headmaster rose solemnly to his feet as the last of the food vanished.

When he spoke, his voice was far from its accustomed boom. It was not gentle, but old, sorrowful.

"Students, staff, I am afraid I must share with you the gravest news."

There were glances between students. The staff either knew already, or kept themselves composed.

Harry sat stiffly.

It could have been so much worse. Another few minutes, and Snape might have been joined by Dumbledore and McGonagall and Bones and Moody. And after that, who knew how many more...

Harry knew that the death of one person - two - was an unbelievably light price to pay for killing Lord Voldemort. He knew that Snape would have gone to that death willingly, if he had somehow known.

That didn't make it right.

"Professor Severus Snape," spoke Dumbledore carefully, "died last night."

That simple phrase seemed to burn in the crowded hall. No student breathed. First-years who, minutes previously, might have gleefully imagined the hated man's death, sat stunned by the simple force of the words.

"Make no mistake," continued Dumbledore, "Severus was not a flawless man. But he was our respected Potions Master, a most gifted wizard, and - far more importantly - a good friend to me."

The silence was absolute.

"The truth is sacred," continued Dumbledore, "and I will not lie to spare young ears. Severus Snape was killed by Lord Voldemort."

That broke the spell, and there was a moment of horrified whispering before Dumbledore raised a hand once more.

"The danger is past. Thanks in part to Severus' own actions, the Dark Lord can threaten nobody ever again. It is safe to tell you now that Severus was a spy for the Light for almost all his life. His unwavering dedication and unspeakable mental discipline saved many lives."

"Severus died in the act of defending myself, Amelia Bones, Alastor Moody and Minerva McGonagall. Severus had his own demons, but I ask you all to remember him as the man who overcame his background, his flaws and his circumstances, and lived and died ultimately for love. Thank you."

Dumbledore sat down again.

Harry stared hard at the grain of the table wood, trying to absorb himself in it, trying to forget his failure.

The students sat in sombre silence, saying little.

Tears shone on the faces of some of the Slytherins.

At the far end of the Slytherin table, Rhianne Felthorne sat with her head in her hands and sobbed. She couldn't quite remember... something, but it made her heart ache anyway.

**OoOoO**

Baba Yaga stood unsteadily in her living room, brandy clutched tightly in trembling fingers. Her boots were still on, her heavy cloak tattered and scorched about her. There was a kind of calmness there that bespoke only helplessness.

Without warning her control broke, and she wound up and threw the goblet with force nobody could muster without magical aid into the fire. With a sob, magic lashed out of her and tore the opposing wall free of the rest of the house.

It didn't help.

After a while, she calmed again. She drank, and tried to forget, or at least think of something else.

It didn't work.


End file.
